San Diego Coast Walk: Week 11.25 Harbor Island

Harbor Island has much in common with its neighbor shelter Island. Both were former sand bars that were built in the late 50's early 60's. Both are owned by the city. All the businesses are on leased property. Both have lots of ships anchored. Both are under the jurisdiction of the Harbor Police. Unlike Shelter Island, which evokes images of grass skirts and tropical flavored cocktails, Harbor Island kind of feels like it never evolved much beyond its origins as a concrete block buttressed by rip rap sitting along the edge of San Diego Bay. Whereas the 60's expressed at Shelter Island may never have needed a counter culture to make things interesting, I suspect the 60's types who rebelled back then were more than happy to overthrow the squareness of Harbor Island. Despite these criticisms of urban planning, it's actually kind of lovely here and we would not have missed this for the world.

A very large harbor complex

Smooth sheltered water reflecting

Our adventure here started at 10 in the morning when we were looking for a place to stash the shuttle bike for a earlier phase of the journey. I had trouble finding any bike racks near the intersection of the road connecting this place to mainland and the road running along the spine of the island. it turned out we also forgot the keys. I didn't help that I had an urgent need to use the facilities either. I guess we expected this place to be easier after all the fun we had on Shelter Island.

Oooh! There's a coast here.

Last gas for 3,000 miles.

Our journey here began in earnest after the lunch stop and finding a parking space near the west end of the island (and leaving the bike at the east end). The island boasts all sorts of parking, but most of it is either expensive or reserved for people who never seem to be here. There's a few pullouts and one park near the west end. it was this park where we left the car. We wandered along the land facing side of the island until we got to the tip where we gazed once more at Shelter Island and it's faux South Pacific charm. We spent a few more seconds contemplatint Tom Ham's lighthouse before heading out along the bayshore trail.

Always airplanes here.

Shelter Island in the background, sailing ship in the fore.

A little lighthouse in your soul

Tom Ham's lighhouse!

It's pretty much like this the whole way.

This walk is worth it for the views alone. You get a nice perspective on the city and north Island Naval air station. Depsite Harbor Island's location between two airports the noise from the planes is minimal. They don't seem to fly over the island itself. (no, they seem more to fly over our house).

A little further along.

Downtown finally seems close

North Island Naval air station

We kept a good pace for this leg. There's no real sculptures, no meanders, not really much in the way of vegetation either. There's 3 hotel towers, some businesses servicing the harbor, a fancy restaurant on either end, a road running the length of the isle and that's all.

Survey marker!

The future of green power

In the park where we left the car there was this cool looking wind turbine. I am reminded of Ian McEwan's book "Solar," which has this bit about designing wind turbines. I think they'd look like the one in this park. People who wander here are likely guests of one of the hotels. They flew in here and this is about as much of the city as they're going to see. They will believe we all live out of overpriced convenience stores and fancy restaurants and enjoy magnificent views and are patrolled by the Harbor Police. The buildings and bridges they see on the great videoscreen of a Bay before them might as well be mirages of world that cannot exist above ground. Oh momentary visitor there is so much more in our urban jungle.

If you stray too far from The Path you end up in the street.
Given how fast People drive here, that would be really stupid.

The hangars of north Island

Our view of the Coronado Bridge was totally awesome here.

We covered ground

i wanted to do this is some sort of time lapse / montage showing our progress. And then what? I'm not really sure. I just remember thinking that as we made our way.

Harbor tours! Everyone wave! They may even wave back!

We can now pretty much see all the way down the bay from this angle.

This path is pretty much like this the whole way, dazed pedestrians included.

This Great Blue Heron was wonderfully still for us as we passed by

Heron in 3-d

Still resting, still glowing

Looking deeper toward the South Bay

Finally some "real" vegetation

And finally the Island Prime steakhouse came into view and we knew our journey for the day was drawing to a close. The coolest thing here was seeing a guy in his Lamborghini show up at the steakhouse entrance with his heavily perfumed date for the night. I imagine such is quite the lifestyle. Sure.

The food trucks of Island prime.

This eatery marks the end of our journey

The end of the Island.

Now finally at the end we embraced and contemplated our next move. Although our apartment complex was likely visible from here we could not pick it out on the hillside. It all looks so different from here than it does from above or on a map.

The rest of harbor drive doesn't have much for us, so we'll probably bike it. I think however we should capture some element of all the rental car places along the way. Something like that. I picked up the bike and rode back to the car while Anita caught a few more images.