San Diego: Quivira Basin

 

Mission Bay’s Quivira Basin is one of the most significant places in my life.  A lot happened here.

Around Labor Day of 1967 I sailed in with the woman who was then a part of my life in my first boat, an Excalibur 26’, which I had bought only eight months earlier in Oakland, at the end of my first coastal sail.  We had stopped only in Santa Barbara.  We went into Seaforth Marina on the left of the photo where I had arranged a slip and then lived on board for a year and a half until I took delivery of a new Ericson 35 at a dealership on Harbor Island in San Diego Bay.  I lived at Harbor Island Marina from 1970 until November 2, 1974, when I set off on what became my first attempt at Cape Horn.

We had the pleasure of dinner Saturday night with Susan and Howard, and Susan’’s nephew, Conor, at their house and went to a Padres game with them Sunday afternoon.  They are among my oldest friends, dating back to when we met while living on board boats at Harbor Island Marina in those early 70s years.

I began the open boat voyage on CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE from the inside of the brown dock at the bottom of the photo.  This hotel was then named The Islandia and the building in the left hand corner of the photo did not exist.  I had taken delivery of CT in June of 1978, sailed her from here to San Diego Bay and back, and set out for the 3,000 mile passage to the Marquesas in November. That was probably the most audacious thing I have ever done.  I did not know that the voyage was possible.  I rowed the little yawl around the end of the dock and out into the basin, raised sails, and was gone.

Thirty-six years later I began GANNET’s circumnavigation from Driscoll’s Marina on the far side of the basin at the upper right of the photo.  I had the little boat towed from near Chicago out here in October 2012, flew back and forth between San Diego and Chicago for a year and a half, before setting out on the first leg to Hawaii.  I do not follow or engage in social media, but I must  confess to pleasure when a friend sent me a link to a comment “I’ll bet he bails in Hawaii”  That was 30,000 miles ago.  GANNET returned to Driscoll’s after the completion of her circumnavigation and was docked there until I had her trucked east to Hilton Head Island in September of 2019.

Tonight will be our last night here.  We fly to Atlanta tomorrow, stay at an airport hotel that night, and fly on to Hilton Head on Wednesday.

We have walked around the basin and spent a lot of time on our balcony watching the considerable activity below.  I like it here.  I will miss seeing old friends again.  But both Carol and I will be happy to be back home in the marsh.

Here is a wider view, looking east, from our balcony.