Around The World In 80 Waves

I have my last afternoon in the United States free, and use it to check out San Diego. I have seen so many big buildings in the USA that the city skyline is not amazing but it is definitely a pretty city. There is so much to do but I dont have enough time to see it all.

I head straight down to the harbour area and stumble across this memorial to Bob Hope in recognition for his morale work with US servicemen. The statue I am leaning against is actually surrounded by other life sized figures of servicemen listening to him and there is a looped recording of his gags when he visited the troops out on Vietnam, Korea, etc so that one of his shows appears to be recreated.

I go for wander around the dock where there are some classic sailboats, working fishing vessels and countless pleasue boats.

However the biggest ship in the city harbour is the USS Midway which you can see in the background here with the aircraft lined up on its flight deck.

The Midway was the largest ship in the world until 1955, as well as the first US warship to be too big to transit the Panama Canal.

Even that is eclipsed by the USS Carl Vinson moored over at the US Naval base across the bay, which is a Nimitz class supercarrier boasting two nuclear reactors and over 6,000 servicemen and women will be stationed on this boat when it goes to sea. At the end of a recent infamous mission it was involved in, Osama Bin Laden’s body was brought back to the boat after the operation which killed him. Then after a religeous ceremony the body was buried at sea from this ship.

I see two more carriers in the port area, which make me laugh because the UK cant even afford to share one with France at the moment! One US aircraft carrier has a more powerful air force than 70% of all the other countries in in the world. Perhapss they would be willing to lend us one?

I drive up over the fantastically curved Coronado Bridge towards the coast and see the Hotel Del Coronado which was where all of the resort scenes were filmed for Billy Wilder’s masterpiece ‘Some Like It Hot’, which starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. The hotel was supposed to be in Florida in the film.

From there I went along the stretch of sand known as the Silver Spur southwards towards the Mexican border, which is now within sight. There is just the town of Imperial beach and its Pier left before crossing the border itself. I go for a stroll along the pier and enjoy some fish and chips, whilst watching both the dolphins and the locals fishing off the side of it. Actually bagging this shot of one of them.

For my last night in the USA Joanne cooks me a lovely meal. I havent had home cooked food in over two months so it is a real treat and to wash things down we tuck into some of the fantastic wine I bought at the other end of California. We are chatting for hours but as soon as Joanne is trying to spoil my yawn (I had earlier explained how you do it) I know it is time to go to bed.