Tag Archives: vacation

Ruby Princess in San Diego

Last week you saw our Ensenada wine tour, but before we got there our ship, Ruby Princess, made port in San Diego.  Here Ursula had reserved a tour of a very different sort — whale watching aboard Hornblower Cruises’ ship Adventure Hornblower.  The picture above was taken at the boarding point for the tour, so you can see how short a walk it is from where Ruby Princess docked.

Adventure Hornblower approaches port

Adventure Hornblower is the second largest of Hornblower Cruises’ seven-vessel San Diego fleet.  She can accommodate 550 passengers, including 300 on the upper sun deck.

Ruby Princess

This particular tour took place this past January. That put us into gray whale season, which runs from mid-December into April. The much larger blue whale reside here from mid-June through September. Unfortunately for us this day, while we did spot some gray whales they were in a lazy, non-breaching mood.  The ones we spotted were taking it easy and leisurely just breaking the surface of the waters.

Adventure Hornblower

But our time was not wasted.  I managed to snag some really fun landscapes, the best of which you’ll of course see on this coming Fun Photo Friday.  Here is the Old Point Loma Lighthouse, located in the Cabrillo National Monument:

Old Point Loma Lighthouse

Well, if there’s an Old Point Loma Lighthouse, then it stands to reason that there must be a New Point Loma Lighthouse, and here it is at the end of Point Loma:

New Point Loma Lighthouse

That “new” lighthouse was built in 1891. The old lighthouse, which was built only 36 years prior, was too often shrouded in fog atop it’s 400-foot/120-meter perch to be useful when most often needed.

Now for a look back to the San Diego skyline:

San Diego

Then we head out to sea, accompanied by other whale watching tour boats:

Flagship whale watching

Soon after rounding North Island Naval Air Station, passing Point Loma, and clearing San Diego Harbor we finally arrived in whale country:

Thar She Blows!