Fast trip to San Diego

San Diego city center

While in Monterey, Customs informed us that we'd need an outbound clearance from San Diego before clearing into Mexico. Luckily, the few days we spent in San Diego were not only interesting and lively, but we missed some bad weather offshore. We took public transport which meant we did a lot of walking. The weather was great - cool and overcast with streets of fragrant jasmine and purple flowering jacaranda trees. It was also great weather for seeing the San Diego Zoo.

Sleeping Panda

Mountain gorilla 

Bob - our Docent on the 'Star'

After securing our Clearance on Wednesday, we stopped by the downtown waterfront ... it's now home to a number of ships which make up an in-water Maritime Museum. Included are a cold-war Russian diesel submarine; the ship featured as the 'Surprise' in the movie Master and Commander and the 'Star of India'  - the oldest iron-hulled ship still sailing. The 'Star' took immigrants from England to New Zealand.

Larry on the 'Surprise'

We had a great pleasure and Surprise of our own when Larry discovered that his friend and climbing partner from the Himalaya - Barbara King - was living nearby. We had a great time with Barb ... she's still climbing mountains and looking great. Our photos turned out fuzzy. Alas - we didn't realize how they'd look until later when we put our specs on.