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Part 3: San Diego Bay’s greatest strength, Peterson says,
is as a gateway to the Sea of Cortez, which boasts some of the best fishing,
diving, and relaxed cruising in the world.
By Matt Trulio — Fall 2004
After a day of touring, Peterson suggests cruising to
Shelter Island or Harbor Island, both within San Diego Bay. Home to Pearson’s
fuel dock (Peterson’s favorite fuel stop), Shelter Island offers
overnight accommodations at the Shelter Island Inn and Marina. Bali Ha’I
generally is the top choice of the restaurants on the island, though there
are others.
Where Shelter Island is quaint and charming, Harbor
Island is new and sparkling. It’s also home to the Sheraton Harbor
Island Resort, which offers complete services for visiting cruisers.
The downside of staying on either Harbor Island or Shelter
Island is that you can’t just stroll into downtown San Diego from
either of them. Once a funky, if not depressing, Navy town, San Diego
has undergone a remarkable makeover in the past 20 years that—most
recently—includes Petco Field, home of the Padres Major League Baseball
team. For ready access to the city, the San Diego Marriott Hotel is the
easiest choice. Located on the edge of the bay with the city directly
behind it, the hotel offers complete marina services and short-term dockage.
(For overnight dockage, the marina has a referral service.) Westward-facing
rooms, especially those on the higher floors, provide incredible sunset
views.
ADVENTURE CALLS
The much-deserved dig on California ports, and cruising off the Golden
State in general, is that once you get beyond protected water there’s
really no place to go. Pass under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco,
for example, and your most viable day trip is a jaunt to the Farallon
Islands, where you can watch great white sharks snack on sea lions (good
fun on an empty stomach, but somewhat less appealing during on-deck luncheons).
From most Southern California ports, the standard-issue run consists of
a cruise to the town of Avalon on Catalina Island. It’s a lovely
spot, especially if tooling around narrow streets in golf carts is what
you have in mind, but hardly exotic or adventurous.
San Diego Bay, especially as a long-range cruiser like
Peterson knows it, provides the exception to the California rule. From
the mouth of the bay, it’s a half-day cruise to Newport Harbor (approximately
70 miles one way) and—get ready to power shop—Fashion Island.
Head south for roughly the same amount of time and you’re off Ensenada,
Mexico (approximately 80 miles), which offers a port with extensive dockage
and complete services.
Peterson recommends a stay at Ensenada’s Hotel
Coral and Marina. “They have every facility and service any resort
would have—suites, in-room massage, a pool and so on—and the
food is great,” he says. “And they have a full-blown marina
with guest docks. The hotel has been there for ten years, but only in
the last four or five years have people thought a lot about going down
there. It’s not like going to mainland Mexico, but it’s a
great, easy trip.”
San Diego Bay’s greatest strength, Peterson says,
is as a gateway to the Sea of Cortez, which boasts some of the best fishing,
diving, and relaxed cruising in the world. From the mouth of the harbor,
Cabo San Lucas—which is to authentic Mexico what Taco Bell is to
authentic Mexican food—is roughly 1,000 miles. That’s a fairly
long haul, but cruisers with Peterson’s sense of adventure love
it: Cabo offers everything needed to refuel and re-provision before rounding
the tip of the Baja peninsula and heading north into the Sea of Cortez.
“We don’t want to let the cat out of the
bag, but San Diego is the launching point for the Sea of Cortez, and it’s
amazing,” Peterson says. “I’ve cruised Tahiti, Fiji,
and a lot of other places, and day in and day out the Sea of Cortez has
everything they do—and you’re not going to get hammered by
the seas getting there. It’s just a few days from here down to Cabo
San Lucas, and there are spots along the way to see like Todos Santos
Island and Magdalena Bay.”
That’s a trip Peterson would like to take more
often. But between runs to the Sea of Cortez, he’s content to tour
his own version of paradise on whatever Mikelson model he happens to be
keeping at the docks of the San Diego Yacht Club.
“You could spend six hours, easily, cruising the
bay and not get bored,” he says. “It’s a practical paradise.
It would be inaccurate to say it’s as nice as Tahiti, but it really
is wonderful.”
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