Updated February 11 2012
San Diego has served as a home port for three of my ships and a place of visitation for two of them. One important thing that one should understand about San Diego is that it is primarily a Military Port. There are no container facilities or other commercial wharves except for the facility that processes Kelp into NutraSweet. At one time in its past San Diego served as a tuna processing port, and a small ship yard built and repaired tuna seiners. San Diego is also home to NASSCO. NASSCO is the only primary ship yard remaining in the State of California, it's primary customer is the US Navy but it has also built commercial ships. San Diego's City fathers in the 1890's petitioned congress to consider San Diego as the location of a naval station and coaling facility. The Navy remains today as San Diego's primary employer.
When looking at the skyline photo to the right you will see a gray hull this one of the MSC tankers resident in San Diego that provides UNREP training for the regular Navy ships. Two of the ships that I was on with Military Sealift Command berthed at this pier which is at the Navy Supply Center near the foot of Broadway. USNS Kawishiwi T-AO 146 and USNS Rappahannock T-AO 204 berthed at this pier on Friday evenings and shifted to the fuel pier near Point Loma on Sunday mornings. Regulations of service changed after the famous Exxon Valdez spill which means that a Kawishiwi type vessel or the USNS Walter S. Diehl T-AO 193 could not be stationed as the duty AO in San Diego. Rappahannock differs in that she has a double hull. This means that if a collision with an object or a vessel were to occur the cargo would be safe from contact with the fragile marine environment. If the ship were to be hit by a mine or torpedo there is no guarantee that this system will protect the environment but it has become a requirement for all new construction tankers doing business in American ports. The only other Kaiser Class T-AO's to have the double hull configuration are the USNS Laramie and the USNS Patuxent. Later research has revealed that our double hulled AO's have been sequestered from duty in CONUS and have been forward deployed due to commitments with other nations that require the use of double hulled vessels. Current plans call for the eventual replacement of the Kaiser Class with new double hulled AO's with the first keel laid in 2014. The Kaiser itself which had been placed in ROS status has been returned to full active duty with the fleet as of this writing according to a friendly source in the MSC local office in San Diego. That source further states that the USNS Tippecanoe T-AO-199 is the current duty oiler providing training services to fleet in San Diego.
Now look at that skyline picture again, things have changed. The former place where my assigned AO's used to berth has been revamped. The pier was shortened with a quasi-museum gift shop built at the front and is now the home of the USS Midway CV-41 museum. What still exists is the fleet landing to the north of the pier. The large pier beyond the fleet landing is the cruise ship dock which has jet boats departing on the weekends to a tourist trap south of Tijuana on the Baja coast. If memory serves correctly that location was known as Ensenada . I took that boat when I was on the Rappahannock one weekend just to see what the place was about. A lot of California students were known to use the city as a Spring Break destination because of the lax legal age of drinking laws.
At one time there was talk of creating a canal at the southern end of the Coronado Peninsula to provide a more convenient access to the sea for the yacht club in Coronado but the Navy balked at the idea, stressing security concerns. One other item that the navy had an input on was the design of the Coronado Bridge . There is not a single photo on file that shows the view of the bridge mid channel which will indicate the important design feature so the hyperlink opens up to a satellite view of the bridge and an indicator of the mid-span of the bridge which is also the summit in its elevation. The navy did not want to see the fleet put out of action should the bridge be attacked or sabotaged bringing it down to block the channel, so the entire mid-span of the bridge is designed to float should it ever drop to the channel below. The fact is always a tidbit shared on the Harbor Cruises. The Navy is not only the cities largest employer but it is also a large tourist attraction. Indeed San Diego is steeped in its position as a tourist destination. The famed Wyatt Earp owned a saloon in the Gas Light district of the city and Balboa Park annually serves as a center of Earth Day. San Diego is also famous for its world class zoo. The red trolley light rail system was always a good way of getting around and in fact takes the tourist within walking distance of Mexico at San Ysidro.
Back in the old days of my regular Navy experience Broadway had its share of places to separate the sailor from his money. As soon as one crossed the street from the fleet landing at the foot of Broadway there were massage parlors, tattoo parlors and strip joints to tempt the sailor. There was even a clothing store called Seven Seas which offered civilian clothing to sailors on credit. I myself became a willing participant to that venue. To repay the store we would just send money orders on a monthly basis. The first time I saw San Diego was when we came down for REFTRA in 1975, that ugly business that every regular navy ship must endure before it deploys on Westpac. I was on the USS Kilauea AE-26 during that time. One of our crew members whose name I do not remember but who became a Christian shortly after was taken into custody by the Shore Patrol one night for getting up on stage with the lady strippers and stripping off all of his clothes. He was drunk when he did it. Quite frankly the practice of consuming alcoholic beverages is what tends to get most sailors in trouble as it did me at the Ships Bell. I think I already relayed the story in the Kilauea narrative, however it was one of the incidents that caused me to flee the demon of booze. I had been kicked out of the Ships Bell enlisted club at the Naval Training center after slipping my hand under a waitresses dress. I was only 18 years old at the time. After the Kilauea had completed REFTRA exercises at anchor during that time frame we had berthed at a pier at North Island NAS. We were berthed west of the USS Kitty Hawk CV-62 with the USS Long Beach CGN-9 and USS Chicago CG-11