Rose Brooks

Episode 470 – San Diego Port Interlude

Despite the fact that we’re continuing on to Hawaii, we had to disembark by 9:30 and re-board after 11:30 today, so we took advantage of the glorious sunny weather to stroll the Embarcadero waterfront area of San Diego. The area has changed quite a bit since we last had an extended visit here about 20 years ago, with new restaurants, monuments, and updated parks, although the massive aircraft carrier USS Midway is still the dominant feature.

New since our last visit: “Embracing Peace” towering 25 feet tall; a tribute to Bob Hope and his many USO tours entertaining the troops; and a monument to the USS San Diego.

A soundtrack of some of Bob Hope’s USO routines plays on speakers around the statues.
I especially liked the fact that the “audience” represented all of the armed forces branches, and uniforms from various campaigns.

Further along the walkway we came to the Saturday fresh tuna market, where pelicans, cormorants, and shearwaters “fished” beside the pier, and loud, lazy harbour seals dined on scraps from the fish vendors.

Just look at how much that pelican’s bill stretches to fill with water, which is filtered out once the captured fish get swallowed!
There was a lot of noise, flapping, and scuffling as the shearwaters tried to snatch fish right out of the pelicans’ bills!
The water was clear enough that Ted was able to photograph this cormorant’s dive!
Well fed. Is that a smile?

Once back on the ship, we had a quick lunch of pulled pork tacos, and then just lazed around until grabbing dinner from the buffet, which we carried out to the pool deck and ate while watching the Kansas City / Miami NFL wild card game.

Custom made Caesar salad with fresh warm sweet onion focaccia.
Lovely rare roast beef with a huge crispy Yorkshire pudding, and plenty of gravy.
Warm blueberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream.

Once the football game was over, we headed to Billboard Onboard for their British Invasion-themed set.

An entertainment schedule for this Hawaii cruise was delivered to our room during turndown service. While there are quite a few repeats from last week (not unexpected), there are also some guest lecturers and Hawaii-specific events that should keep our long stretches of sea days to and from the islands interesting.

5 comments

  2. Be sure to read Moloka’i and the Daughter of Molokai while you are on the ship. When we did the Hawaii French Polynesian they had the first book as a book club and I loved it so much I read the second. Ask your cruise director as they had around 30 copies of it on board.

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