In 1542, Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo, a Portuguese sailing for the King of Spain, led the first European expedition to explore the west coast of the United States. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson set aside a half acre of Fort Rosecrans for a monument to him, but there was no statue provided for it until the Portuguese government gave this one to the United States in 1939. It overlooks San Diego from an elevation of 380 feet at the southern tip of Point Loma. In this picture, the closest land in the background is NAS North Island and the City of Coronado.
We started our exploration of Point Loma in Ocean Beach where Interstate-8 ends at a traffic light. Ocean Beach is bounded on the north by the mouth of the San Diego River. When Mother Nature designed the river, she made the mouth a large marsh that the Spanish called False Bay. Shortly after WWII, man cleaned up this messiness by straightening the river and dredging the marsh which is now a big playground called Mission Bay.
The land behind the river's south jetty became a large sandy beach. In 1972, it became the very first Dog Beach. We did not know it was there and stumbled upon it quite by chance. It is a great place for dogs that need lots of space to run and that love the water, but for Sadie, it is a very strange environment; the sand looks like snow but doesn't melt in your mouth and the water tastes bad and lunges at you unexpectedly. Nancy and I both were concerned about being out too long in the midday sun and so our visit to the beach was brief which seemed to suit Sadie just fine.
Traveling south from Dog Beach, the ocean front quickly becomes steep cliffs and the whole peninsula becomes a giant rocky spine. In Ocean Beach, Catalina Boulevard takes you up to the top of the ridge and ends at the edge of town at a gate that is only unlocked from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day. Beyond this point you are on the Fort Rosecrans Military Reservation and the street becomes Cabrillo Memorial Drive.
A large portion of the Reservation is now taken up by the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. Established in 1882 as the post cemetery and designated a national cemetery in 1934, it stretches for a mile on both sides of the road and contains 101, 079 graves. Beautifully maintained, it slopes away towards the Pacific on one side and San Diego Bay on the other and is an impressive sight.
The tip of Point Loma lies just past the cemetery. While the Cabrillo National Monument is the main draw, visitors can also tour the nearby Point Loma Lighthouse which was in operation from 1855 until 1891.
Since dogs must be kept in the car at all times, Nancy stayed with Sadie while I got out and took some pictures. While the view was great, everything was so far away that the haze in the air made most shots look slightly out of focus.
Bonita, CA
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