TimeOut

Exploring San Diego's Embarcadero, Part 3

 

For our third adventure exploring the Embarcadero, we thought we would try to get out on the water. Luckily, the Museum actually takes many of its ships out on the bay or ocean. We signed up for a 4-hour whale watching sail on a 20-year old, $6 million replica of the first America's Cup winning yacht.

We had previously seen her sailing in the bay, and thought it might be fun to try it out. You could also choose the California, shown here, another recreation of a classic sailing vessel.

OR, if you are extremely lucky, well-connected or whatever, you could end up on the Star of India, the oldest iron-hulled sailing vessel in the world that is still afloat and goes out. Our pal Captain Eric is one of the few guys who can command this ship. My wife has stayed on her overnight, with 30 school kids, and is now an honorary officer of the Star.

Here's a kayak's eye view of her sailing from a few years ago.

Now back to the America. We got a lot of instructions about safety. This is a real sailing ship (albeit with a couple John Deere diesels assisting) and lots of things are moving about with capability of knocking your head or throwing you overboard.

Unlike the Russian sub, there is plenty of room to stretch your arms or take a nap. The sun wasn't too hot, the winds were perfectly cooperative, and the diesels kept us moving in the right direction with minimal fuss. The staterooms inside were beautiful and the heads were pretty, smelled nice, and flushed with the push of a button.

Excellent scenery viewable On or From the America.

The diesels are the same type as on the ship I recently cruised in up to Seattle.

The crew did all the work except raising the sails in the first place, when we were asked to assist (hence no photos of that operation).

This yacht is 130 feet long and there was plenty of room for our group of 50 or so. They included drinks and snacks in the $75 price which I thought was a fair deal. Plus, we saw blue whales!

Perhaps because the ship is pretty quiet, the whale were confident and came relatively close to our boat.

Everyone got good looks.

After we left the whales to go home, we got instructions from the very entertaining first mate about marine mammals.

This message has been edited by cazalea on 2014-08-13 10:54:35

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