Hawaii to San Diego

What a beautiful city. I had a great time. Probably was the best part of San Diego was the surprises for me. I heard from two different couples that both happened to be in San Diego and contacted me. The first being Doug and Christee Koch who have been friends since we lived next door to each other in 1970. They were visiting SD and standing on the deck of the USS Midway and thought "Isn't that the Odyssey that Dianne is on?" We just happened to be in the port and tied up right next to the USS Midway. It is HUGE! We never got a chance to see each other but it was awesome to know that they have seen my new home.

USS MIDWAY

And just to prove how small the world really is --- as many of you know I was the Ocean Cruising Club Port Officer in Beaufort for many years. I loved the job because I met so many wonderful sailors from around the world and were sailing around the world. One such couple is Laura and Dick on the SV Maia who sailed into Beaufort in late 2023. They had been following my adventures, and while they were anchored in San Diego, the Odyssey sailed by. They txted me while actually standing right in front of Odyssey. I had just left the boat in search of a Pizza in Little Italy, but we finally got together over coffee and a Pain Killer (my favorite cocktail, as many of you know) before we both had to leave for our next adventure. I hope I get to see more of my OCC friends along my trip around the world. The pizza was the best ever, by the way.

Sitting outside eating delicious pizza and people watching

One afternoon a group of us ladies took the ferry across the bay to get cocktails at the Del Coronado Hotel. I was so confused - 2 gals called it "The Del" and others called it "The Coronado". Evidently if you are familiar with SD, you are supposed to know THE DEL. Well, I guess so, at $1300 a night for a room. It is a historic Victorian beach resort and opened in 1888. But, we found it and had a drink over looking the beach and visited the lobby. It is, no doubt, an elegant hotel. From there we grabbed an Uber and headed to a Yacht Club, where one of our residents invited us to attend their Trivia Night. We all agreed that we were terrible at Trivia, but between the 6 of us at our table, we came in 2nd and won a bottle of wine. On the way back home, we actually saw the blast-off of a Space-Ex satellite (I think). It was a very good day.

And now I'm off to Catalina Island and San Francisco.