Day 12 – San Diego

After we got back to the hotel from Harumama last night, Dad and I were both in bed by 9 p.m. We slept almost 10 hours last night. 
 
Today we visited the Maritime Museum of San Diego on the waterfront, not far from the USS Midway Museum. The collection includes a spectacular Victorian-era ferryboat that operated for 60 years on San Francisco Bay; a working life-size reconstruction of the  San Salvador, which was sailed by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542 when he landed in what is now San Diego; the Star of India, the world’s largest active sailing ship, launched from the Isle of Man in 1863 and used as a cargo ship as well as a passenger vessel for immigrants traveling from the United Kingdom to New Zealand and Australia; and the USS Dolphin, the world’s deepest-diving submarine.

The HMS Surprise

The Berkeley, a Victorian-era ferryboat

The inside of the USS Dolphin submarine.

We found that the docents at the museum are extremely … enthusiastic. They are willing and able to chat on and on about their maritime endeavors, whether we are really interested or not.
 
We then embarked on a 75-minute naval history tour aboard a Vietnam War-era swift boat, the only active passenger-carrying swift boat in the country. We cruised under the Coronado Bridge, past Naval Base San Diego and all the docked ships, and then turned around and cruised past the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USNS John Lewis docked at NAS North Island. One of the volunteer docents aboard the ship is a Navy veteran from Vincennes, Indiana, who went ROTC at Purdue. He still follows the basketball team, so Dad enjoyed chatting with him about Zach Edey.
 

After the boat tour, we met Clare for lunch, and walked around Seaport Village – a new development of restaurants and shops on the waterfront – until it was time to drive her back to Naval Base San Diego.  

For dinner, we walked from our hotel, past the Point Loma marina and along the waterfront, to Bali Hai, a Polynesian-themed tiki lounge on the northern tip of Shelter Island, with amazing views of downtown San Diego, Naval Air Station North Island and the planes landing at San Diego airport. 

Since it opened in 1954, Bali Hai has been a San Diego institution. Designed like a Polynesian “hut,” the place looks like grew out of a “Mad Men” fever dream. The menu hailed its world-famous Bali Bai Mai Tai, with 19 gazillion sold in the last 70 years. So of course we each had to order one, completely disregarding the description that says “No juice added!!!” and “Limit 2 per person.” We were served what amounted to a giant Yeti tumbler-sized glass of straight – straight – rum. Dad kept calling it a “big boy drink.” We had to ask for multiple glasses of guava juice and grapefruit juice to water it down. 

Did we even order dinner? I can’t remember. But I do remember walking 25 minutes back to the hotel, and detouring to Winchell’s Donuts (open 24/7!) for a little dessert. Delicious! Best part of the night.