Sheridan Dowling: “This is one of the few private beaches remaining in this area. The original concept for the property was that it was going to be a yacht club. But the shelf goes out too far."

Pretty Woman

Ann, 21, who filled out her bikini in a perfectly proportionate manner, said she was satisfied with her figure. She listened serenely as I spoke with her friends, but her voice boomed with brazen proclamations when I turned to her. "Hell, yeah, I'm a feminist. A woman can do anything in the world that she wants. A feminist is independent, smart, beautiful, everything. She just knows what she wants and goes and gets it."

By Deirdre Lickona, Aug. 9, 2001 | Read full article

Dick Long checks dive suit for leaks. "What we did was hire these people from Canada. First, they cut some holes too low, and then they flooded the boiler room to see if there were any leaks going back to other areas, but they didn’t pump it out afterwards."

Does the Yukon Tempt Divers to Death?

“When a ship sinks for real,” he said, “it has everything in it, but the Yukon has been steam-cleaned, and we removed all the wire. When a ship deteriorates underwater, the wires will fall down and trip divers. But we took all that out. Also, we went through and took out bulkheads and walls. When we got the ship it had 200 rooms, and now it has about 100 rooms. So we made little rooms into big rooms.

By Justin Wolff, Aug. 30, 2001 | Read full article

Great white caught in tuna cages off Coronado Islands. The cage was really a net full of tuna anchored there as part of a tuna-farming operation -- a joint venture between Australian and Mexican companies.

Blood on the Water

Sea lion and seal populations are increasing in local waters, Castillo concedes, but he says they aren't near levels needed to support adult great white sharks. Other factors make the San Diego-Ensenada stretch of the Pacific an unlikely destination for large white sharks. "You have to remember that these animals are very fragile in biological terms. Contamination and pollution affect them. We have a high volume of navigational traffic in Southern California and all of Baja."

By Ernie Grimm, Sept. 30, 2004 | Read full article

Reinhard Flick: "Places like Oceanside are a lot wider. South Mission Beach is hundreds of feet wider than it was in the ’30s. And Coronado, those beaches were very narrow at the turn of the century. Today Coronado has one of the widest beaches in California."

All Summer, All Winter Is the Sound of the Sea

“There have been remarkably small changes in the San Diego shoreline. Where you do see big changes is by the harbors where there was a lot of sand nourishment. Places like Oceanside are a lot wider. South Mission Beach is hundreds of feet wider than it was in the ’30s. And Coronado, those beaches were very narrow at the turn of the century, and in 1905, they almost lost that hotel because of huge storms from the south.”

By Susan Vaughn, Oct 7, 1999 | Read full article

Bay view of downtown San Diego. "The Port Authority took away all the good anchorages and they put us out here because they knew we wouldn’t last."

Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

Home on the Water

There were odd contradictions to the anchorage. It was a place where many people lived at the brink of economic disaster; where, if they weren’t living on a boat, they might be living under a bridge; where a number had been homeless, in prison, addicted to alcohol and various other substances and perhaps some were still addicted. Yet there existed a camaraderie rarely found on land. They took care of each other.

By Stephen Dobyns, Aug 3, 2000 | Read full article

Healing circle. Linda says she recently found the son she gave up 33 years ago. “We’re getting to know each other. He confessed he always imagined his parents were hippies. I tell him stories to assure him we were.”

Freaks, Uppity Women, and Politicos: An Ocean Beach Reunion

Peter gets up, all curly white hair now, though he still has the same fiery style of oratory. “I was part of the New Left. We felt we had to make youth communities like OB into liberated areas while also challenging war and racism and overseas oppression.... We did guerrilla theater and marched to a piece of land that was going to be converted from park land, and the police came, and a few rocks were thrown….”

By David Helvarg, Dec. 7, 2000 | Read full article