Surprises from San Diego
Since my sister had cleverly selected San Diego International Airport as our departing flight terminal instead of LAX, we had a reason to make the drive down to San Diego and continue exploring California. If that wasn’t exciting enough, we decided to detour through Anaheim and go to Disneyland for a day!
Prior to this, we had never been in a Disney theme park before and while I’ve heard that Disneyland in California is considerably smaller than Disneyworld in Orlando, it was still a wonderful experience. Here are a few pictures featuring some of my favourite moments from “the happiest place in the world”.
From Disneyland, we continued making our way to San Diego but not without stopping at various beaches including Long Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.
At long last, we finally reached San Diego! It was time to explore all that the city had to offer. I had done very little research regarding attractions prior to arriving so I didn’t know what to expect here. Perhaps this was for the best since what I did see surprised me in a big way!
We started with La Jolla Cove. As I stood by the ridge’s railing, I saw a flock of birds that had completely painted the rocks white with their poop — nothing too exciting there. I looked beyond them and noticed something else; some sort of blubbery creatures. “No way,” I thought to myself. “Are those… sea lions?”
Indeed they were. Little did I know then that sea lions have been claiming La Jolla Cove as their own in recent years. While a few sea lions could always be spotted near the area for the past few decades, starting about 10 years ago the sea lions have started returning in droves. The beach has really proliferated with these mammals, even as far as birthing their young in the cove. Some speculate that if it wasn’t for the number of people who visit La Jolla, the sea lions would have taken over the entire beach.
There’s a staircase that brings you right down to the shore and at the time of my visit, there were about a dozen sea lions on the shore alone. The sea lions spend most of their time sleeping, sun bathing and playing in the tide as the water washes up on the sand and recedes back into the ocean (they basically roll around in the waves).
You have to be cautious as these creatures can be aggressive if you get too close, thinking you might be a threat. You can, however, get as close as five feet before they start barking at you.
La Jolla Cove used to be a very popular spot to snorkel. While many people were snorkelling when I visited, the number is apparently dwindling due to the sea lions’ territorial invasion. Water contamination due to excrement run off as well as general fear of the mammals are deterring swimmers. The smell wasn’t bad when I was there, but this may have been due to strong winds carrying any odours away. I did, however, witness a sea lion collide with a snorkeller, prompting the sea lion to pop its head above water and bark directly in the snorkeller’s face! Given the shriek the lady conjured up, I’d say fear of being bitten is certainly prevalent.
Despite all this, La Jolla Cove was undoubtedly one of my most memorable visits in California and I’m really happy that I stumbled upon this beach. To be this close to so many sea lions is something I thought could only be accomplished at SeaWorld or Marineland (and even then it’s all behind glass). If you ever visit San Diego, definitely check this area out!
From here, we walked along the coastal track and enjoyed the gorgeous view from the ledge. We eventually came across a welcoming staircase that led to a ridge overseeing the ocean.
From here, the waves crash spectacularly upon the rocks making for some very tall splashes! It’s awesome to see nature at work.
The next day would be our last in San Diego. We went to Sunset Cliffs this time, south of La Jolla but still along the Pacific coast. Again, plenty of gorgeous views of the rocky coastline can be found everywhere you look.
While coastal real estate was obviously stunning, great properties were not exclusive to just the coastline. Between the numerous neighbourhoods we drove through, even average homes appeared very upscale — a characteristic I was very fond of.
One big thing Los Angeles area beaches have over San Diego’s is better maintenance. San Diego’s beaches, namely Pacific Beach Park, had a lot of smelly seaweed and kelp lining the shore. It’s quite a downgrade from the much cleaner beaches we were at previously. Whatever the reason (i.e. budget, environmental), it doesn’t appear it will be remedied any time soon, which is unfortunate.
There was one last thing I’d see in San Diego that would really surprise me and that was the USS Midway.
For a period of 10 years, the USS Midway was the largest ship in the world and served an incredible 47 years before being decommissioned in 1992. It has now been transformed into a museum with several exhibits onboard as well as two dozen historical aircrafts on display.
The end of the ship has also been turned into a restaurant — not bad, huh?
While we’re in the Port of San Diego, I will conclude with the Unconditional Surrender statue found beside the USS Midway. This is a sculptural adaptation of the famous photograph V-J Day in Times Square. Despite standing 25 feet tall, the sculpture is dwarfed by the ship behind it (so you have to get the angle right when taking the picture otherwise it’ll look like a toy).
That’s it for San Diego! Had we known San Diego was going to be as beautiful as it was, we would have certainly allocated more time here than having spent it almost exclusively in Los Angeles. But, no regrets. If anything, because of how little time was spent in this city, San Diego left me with a better impression and now demands a revisit!
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This blog entry is part of the publication Robert Cekan Travels & was originally written on October 30, 2014
Robert Cekan is a young entrepreneur and proud Hamiltonian. He is the founder of the Hamilton discovery website True Resident, as well as Cekan Group, a property management group. He is also a Hamilton REALTOR® with Ambitious Realty Advisors Inc., Brokerage and an active blogger.
For all of Robert’s projects, please visit robertcekan.com
