San Diego Bay

The San Diego Bay with Mission Bay to the north

San Diego Bay is a natural harbor and deepwater port adjacent to San Diego, California. It is 12 mi/19 km long, 1 mi/1.6 km–3 mi/4.8 km wide. The bay is surrounded by the large San Diego urban area and is bordered by the cities of San Diego, National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Coronado.

Considered to be one of the best natural harbors on the western coasts of the North American continent, San Diego Bay was among the earliest portions of those coasts to be settled by Europeans; it was colonized by Spain beginning in 1769. Later it served, and continues to serve to this day, as the home of the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet.

Ports

San Diego International Airport is also adjacent to the bay, across Harbor Drive from the Coast Guard Station. General Dynamics' National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), the only shipyard on the west coast capable of building and repairing large ocean-going vessels, is near the San Diego side of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge.

San Diego Bay's commercial port has two container ship facilities (one for refrigerated containers) and a cruise ship terminal. The port handles more than 3 million metric tons of cargo annually. The cruise ship terminal hosts more than 250 ship calls a year totaling nearly 1 million passengers. A second cruise ship terminal opened in December 2010. Commercial sport fishing boats depart all year round from two docks in Point Loma.

San Diego – Coronado Bridge

The bay is spanned by the San Diego – Coronado Bridge, built in 1969. The bridge curves and rises to a height of 200 feet above the water so that Navy ships can pass under it. (However, the vertical clearance is insufficient for Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, which is why these are docked north of the bridge.) The bridge was originally a toll bridge; however, toll collection was discontinued several years ago, when the bridge's construction loans were paid in full.

A daytime panorama of the bridge.

Recreation

The Star of India

Resorts such as the Hotel del Coronado line the bay shore. Also next to the bay is the San Diego Convention Center.

Several museum ships call San Diego Bay home. They include the USS Midway, the largest aircraft carrier museum, and the Star of India, the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship afloat and the oldest ship of any type still actually sailing. The Star of India and several other ships and boats on San Diego Bay are the floating collection of the San Diego Maritime Museum; they are open to the public for a fee, and many are in sailing condition.

In the northern part of the bay there are two commercial "islands" (actually peninsulas connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land) called Harbor Island and Shelter Island. They were built up from former sand bars and now hold hotels, restaurants, marinas, and public parkland. Across from Harbor Island is a bayside park called Spanish Landing, a historic site which commemorates the meeting in 1769 of two expeditions from Spanish Mexico that made possible the European settlement of California. A dozen other parks are found at various locations along the shoreline.

Small boat sailing is extremely popular, and the bay is lined by dozens of marinas and nine yacht clubs, including the San Diego Yacht Club which was the home of the America's Cup from 1988 to 1995. An inlet of the bay was renamed America's Cup Harbor to commemorate that occasion.

Naval facilities

Plane flies over the Bay

The western border of the bay is protected from the Pacific Ocean by a long, narrow strip of land called the Silver Strand. The northern end of the Silver Strand expands to become North Island, the location of Naval Air Station North Island (the home port of several aircraft carriers including the USS Ronald Reagan) and Coronado. Coronado is the site of the famous Hotel del Coronado. The U.S. Navy has three other facilities on the bay: Naval Station San Diego, Naval Base Point Loma at Ballast Point, which is a Nuclear Submarine base, and Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. The Coast Guard Air Station San Diego is across the bay from NAS North Island and the Federal Communications Commission maintains a monitoring station on the Silver Strand. Several other Navy facilities are located in the surrounding area, and even more existed previously but have since been closed. The U.S. Marine Corps also operates one of its two Recruit Depots near the shores of San Diego Bay.

Ecology

The shallow southern end of the bay is used for evaporation ponds to extract salt from the sea water. The salt ponds, the Sweetwater Marsh, and other areas of the bay are included in the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The area includes the largest contiguous mud-flat in Southern California. It is an important stop on the Pacific Flyway for migrating birds, and it supports numerous endangered and threatened species of plants and animals. Public access to the bay and wetlands, with walking trails and educational exhibits about the area's ecological resources, is provided at the Chula Vista Nature Center operated by the city of Chula Vista. San Diego Bay is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy.

Management

The Port of San Diego manages the harbor and administers the public lands adjacent to the bay. The Port is a special government entity created by the state legislature in 1962, for which revenue consists of tariffs and rents paid by district tenants.

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hildago

San Diego Bay is specifically referenced in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, as one of the landmarks to be used in the resolution of the United States – Mexico border following the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848. The treaty language ensured that the entirety of the bay would belong to the United States.

External links

• Spanish San Diego est 1776
• The Maritime Museum of San Diego
• Maps 1600s to the present
• California Department of Mines and Geology Bulletin 200