I went to Mission Bay High. This was back in the early 60s. There was a gal that swam across the bay to school because she was training for the Olympics and I often surfed before school. MBHS was very water-oriented and let us two females have first period gym so that we could shower before the other classes. The guys that surfed also were allowed first period gym. It was a great high school, I hope it still is.
I lived on mission Beach for 3 years in 1990..... Walk to mission Bay many times, thoroughly enjoyed it..... Many many memories.... Miss that place would love to go back and live there again... Peter ❤
As a history buff, I have to post this excerpt from a U of California paper published in the 1980s: The coastal lowland constituting Pacific and Mission beaches rests on the former delta of the San Diego River (fig. 86). There is one slightly elevated portion at Crown Point, which is an extension of the La Jolla terrace. The alluvium extends almost to Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach where it is replaced by a natural barrier across Mission Bay. The community of Mission Beach to the south is constructed on this barrier and has been protected in recent years from wave erosion by seawalls. Waves have occasionally swept over the walls and into the streets. The southern part of Mission Beach is a sand spit built across Mission Bay. The San Diego River occupies a rather broad valley extending east and west and entering Mission Bay, where it has deposited a considerable amount of alluvial material. The mouth of the river has been greatly modified by man to form a delta for the flatland between the northern margin of Point Loma and the lowland around Old Town. The beach terminates before forming a complete barrier across the mouth of the bay. The tide is sufficient to keep the mouth open, and a flood channel has been built across the beach to carry floodwaters from Mission Bay to the sea. It is very doubtful whether this outlet could carry the volume of floodwater that could sweep down the valley in a repetition of the great floods of 1862, 1884, 1889, and 1891, or even subsequent smaller floods. In fact, if the reservoirs were full, as they are as this is being written, heavy rain in the adjacent mountains might render the flood channel useless (fig. 87). Three jetties built across the mouth of Mission Bay have cut off the supply of sand from Mission Beach to Ocean Beach, and as a result, the cliffs at Ocean Beach have receded considerably. Sand has been introduced from north of the jetties to prevent serious erosion of that community. San Diego is the oldest city on the west coast. It grew around the Mission San Diego de Alcala, founded by Father Junipero Serra in 1769 (Pourade 1960:7). San Diego Harbor had been discovered more than 200 years earlier, in September 1542, by Rodriquez Cabrillo (Pourade 1960:49). Presently the harbor is kept open by tidal currents, with the exception of a sandbar that has to be dredged from time to time. It is the best protected natural harbor on the southern California coast. Mission Bay, formerly called False Bay, was deep enough up until 1810 to allow even relatively deep draft vessels to enter (U. S. Congress 1853:111). During the early nineteenth century southern California rivers seem to have changed their courses periodically as the result of numerous floods. Prior to 1821, the San Diego River usually entered San Diego Harbor. In the fall of 1821, however, a flood changed the river channel in one night, and the greater volume of the flow was diverted into what was then known as False Bay, leaving only a small stream still flowing into the harbor (J. C. Hayes 1874). This flood was remarkable in that no rain fell along the coast. The river was later observed to flow into San Diego Harbor in 1849 and 1856, and the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map of 1859 shows it to be flowing there once again. Because of the high deposition rate of the river, which threatened to ruin San Diego Bay as a harbor, the federal government diverted the flow into Mission Bay and built a levee embankment of earth extending from near Old Town to Point Loma in the fall of 1853 (Derby 1853). Later that year, heavy rains caused the river to change course once again, washing out part of the levee and resuming its old course into the harbor (San Diego Herald 1855). The worst flood in this area was in 1862, appropriately called the Noachian Deluge, and was of special significance because it had a bearing on the Civil War. In San Diego, Mission Valley was inundated, and houses in lower Old Town were flooded when severe winds from a sea storm from the south backed the water up from the bay into the river (Pourade 1964:250). This flood was very significant because it held its peak for over twenty-four hours. In 1876, the levee was reconstructed, and no further diversions into San Diego Bay have occurred. Since then, a considerable volume of sediment has been added to the San Diego River delta in Mission Bay from occasional floods. In 1935 El Capitan Dam was constructed 27 miles up the San Diego River; this reduced the sediment entering the bay considerably. An earlier dam was overtopped in 1916, increasing the floodwaters coming down Mission Valley at the time. The Mission Bay and San Diego River jetties were built in 1948, at a time when the shore of the bay was subject to alternating periods of recession and advance. By February 1951, the river levees had been connected to the jetties. All tidal flow was confined to a new channel. Since the river discharges only during flooding, the middle channel was soon completely filled. The channels were finished by 1955, after various difficulties were overcome and the jetties were considerably lengthened so that shallow bars would not form in the entrance. Extensive dredging was done in Mission Bay to make the channel deep enough for a yacht basin, and other areas were developed to accommodate swimming and other recreational activities (figs. 88a , 88b ). The community of Ocean Beach extends south into Sunset Cliffs, a residential area in the city of San Diego at the north end of Point Loma. The northern part of Ocean Beach is laid out on a remnant of the old delta deposit of the San Diego River plus sand dunes (fig. 89). Historically, the beach in this area was subject to periods of accretion following floods. Since the building of the San Diego River jetties, the beach has had to be maintained by the spoil from dredging. South of Ocean Beach the coast rises, consisting of Cretaceous and Pleistocene sedimentary formations, forming the scenic Sunset Cliffs area of Point Loma. The point itself rises to a height of about 400 feet, with steep sides at the southern end. The structure of this area, which forms a counterpart to Soledad Mountain, is described by Kennedy (1975a , 1975b ). It was noted by Kennedy (1973) that sea cliff retreat at Sunset Cliffs amounted to three feet in the last seventy-five years, or about two inches per year. Where a cave roof collapsed, however, local retreat could be much greater. In recent years, rapid retreat has endangered the road along the cliff, necessitating the dumping of concrete debris at several locations (fig. 90). Unfortunately, the debris has actually accelerated erosion by grinding away at the cliff face, aided by the wave action throwing the coarser material against the cliffs, as shown in our study at Oceanside (Kuhn and Shepard 1980). As evidenced from examination of photographs taken in 1938, 1946, and again in 1968 (figs. 91a , 91b , 91c ), originally there was an offshore arch and another attached to the cliff. By 1945, the longshore arch had collapsed, and the offshore arch was well developed. In 1968, only a small pedestal remained of the offshore arch, and the isolated rock near the former cliff arch had completely disappeared. Also, a large quantity of concrete and asphalt debris had been dumped down the cliff to retard further erosion.
@@Voyagerhq My favorite part is the Scripp's Institute portion of the study. The professionals that knew better than to build on the cliffs, could not resist!!! We have considerable knowledge of the history of the alluvial cliffs at the northern end of the La Jolla section of coast. The first buildings of the Scripps Institution were located just a few feet inside this terrace (fig. 73). Apparently, the builders did not realize that this area was subject to rapid retreat, on the order of a foot or more per year, as was established by repeated measurements (Vaughan 1932). This was actually known earlier than Vaughan's work because seawalls had already been constructed in front of the Scripps buildings (Hanna 1926:233); nonetheless, retreat continued north and south of the wall until about 1946. The erosion was found to be related to the fact that the sand beach was several hundred feet wide at low tide in the summer and was subject to depletion during winter storms (Shepard and Grant 1947). Generally, the erosion began as a series of sand cusps, after which the waves completely removed the sand from the beach to expose underlying gravel and sometimes the underlying semi consolidated alluvial formation (fig. 74a ). During late winter storms, this allowed the waves, with the help of cobbles, to undercut the alluvial cliffs and thereby produce the annual retreat. Beginning in 1946, however, the storms became less violent, and the beaches were not appreciably cut away in the winters, so the smaller waves that reached the cliffs were not capable of undermining them. Instead, over the next thirty years, most of the bluffs gradually became less steep, and vegetation became well established on the slopes. Only an occasional storm did any cutting, and then it was at the cliff base. As a result, the builders, who rarely show interest in anything that may have happened more than a few years in the past, began building homes all along these apparently stable bluffs and filled canyons, some even extending support columns out over the inner beach. This practice was curtailed by the California Coastal Commission, however, in the 1970s. In January 1978 the first severe storms in thirty years occurred and panic followed (Kuhn and Shepard 1979b ). Desperate measures of all sorts were tried in an effort to stop the erosion of the alluvial bluffs, which had been postponed for so long. In one threatened area, the homeowners obtained old cars and drove them onto the beach, hoping they would buffer the cliffs from the waves (fig. 74b ). The cars were soon smashed to pieces, posing little resistance to the high surf and leaving a pile of glass and steel frames on the beach. The steel frames were removed by the homeowners, and concrete was poured over riprap in another attempt to stop the waves (fig. 74c ), but the waves broke over the existing concrete wall, causing it to collapse (fig. 74d ) and greatly accelerating erosion of the adjacent property (fig. 74e ). Elsewhere seawalls were begun. This method, however, was only partially successful, as some collapsed while being built. As this book is being written, most of the homes are protected by a substantial, continuous seawall (fig. 74f ), and only one small section at Scripps Institution remains unprotected. This last site is now being threatened, as evidenced by a number of cracks that became visible in the winter of 1982 in the pavement of the parking lot there. These cracks have since been filled. During the large storms of January to March 1983, however, the alluvial cliffs retreated about three feet as a result of cobble abrasion, and the Scripps wooden stairs collapsed, necessitating their closure for public safety. One of the last sections to be protected by a seawall was the Marine Biology Building at Scripps (fig. 75). This was a sore point with university architects who located the building on a low terrace of alluvium, about fifteen feet from its cliffed margin. They apparently failed to utilize studies showing that this margin had retreated some fifty-six feet over a sixty-three-year period from 1912 to 1975 (Hannan 1975). They even graded the outer terrace, which added to the erosion potential, and allowed pipes that drained water from the laboratories of the building to run out under the building margin, which only further eroded underlying semiconsolidated rock formations. The results should have been anticipated. The terrace margin was cut away during the first year the building was occupied, and serious sagging of the floor occurred. A seawall was then built, and other measures were taken to prevent further damage to the new building. Just north of the building, over fifty Indian burial sites have been uncovered in the cliffs. Carbon-14 dating shows them to be from 5,460 to 7,370 years old (Shumway et al. 1961). A fossil horse bone found directly south of the building yielded an age of 55,000 years as determined by amino acid (Bada et al. 1974). A curiosity observed in the beach north of Scripps Institution pier is the long, concretionary rock extending out from the shore. It forms a sort of dike that is well exposed each winter, when the sand is cut away from either side. Photographs dating back to 1943 show that erosion has gradually removed the outer portion of the concretion and, as blocks became detached, they were ground into sand (Emery and Kuhn 1980). South of the alluvial cliff zone is a barrier beach. It continues for more than half a mile, where it terminates south of the beach club in the sandstone cliffs. There is evidence that a considerable lagoon once existed inside this barrier, as indicated from soil foundation cores and from the fact that the lower part of the old lagoon became submerged in heavy rains (fig. 76). Extensive artificial infilling occurred during the recent dry decades, and a portion of what is now known as La Jolla Shores was created. This lagoon was partly filled by the runoff from Hidden Valley. There are indications that at one time a barrier also existed at a somewhat higher level, to the north, as can be observed by the small terrace level when following the road south from Scripps Institution. The Marine Room Restaurant at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club was damaged by several storms in the 1940s (fig. 77) and sustained extensive damage again in 1983. The La Jolla coast is somewhat unique in having two submarine canyons that extend virtually in to the beach (fig. 78). One of these canyons is located off the cliffs north of Scripps Institution, and the other is off the south end of the long beach at La Jolla Shores. Both canyons are rather clearly related to the land valleys at their heads. The northern one, Scripps Canyon, extends southward in an almost straight line and has vertical, and even overhanging, walls all along its length for about a mile out, where it joins the less precipitous La Jolla Canyon. One unique feature of Scripps Canyon is its constantly changing depths. It fills gradually for a number of feet, and then a slide, sometimes combined with a turbidity current, carries the sediment seaward, often with enough force to remove large boulders along its course. It has several side canyons at its head and, from time to time, new or old buried tributaries are apparently uncovered, which may subsequently be refilled. La Jolla Canyon has steep sides and a vertical headwall but is generally less precipitous than Scripps Canyon. It extends for thirty-three miles seaward in a general southwest direction and enters San Diego Trough twenty-seven miles off the coast at a depth of 3,600 feet. Dives into the head of the canyon show it to be unstable, and the character of the bottom changes at frequent intervals of time. The surrounding terrace has yielded many artifacts, some dated at approximately 4,200 years old. There is substantial evidence that the head has been retreating shoreward at an average rate of about one inch per year for the past few thousand years (Shepard and Dill 1966:57-58). Shepard and Dill (1966) also showed that the retreat from 1950 to 1964 was over two feet per year. An interesting feature of La Jolla Canyon is the effect it has on the waves on the long beach at La Jolla Shores. The waves are almost always much smaller at the head of the canyon, owing to wave divergence as the crests move shoreward up the canyon. Conversely, they are much larger at the north end of the beach where the waves converge, so there may be two-foot breakers at the canyon head and ten-foot breakers in the northern convergence, half a mile up the beach. Thus, swimming is easier at the canyon head, and huge numbers of bathers swim there every day in the summer, whereas surfers are relegated to the northern convergence, where they abound. The effects also relate to the rip currents which are an ever-present danger. These rips are in the area between the lowest and highest waves, and the lifeguards are on constant alert for unwary bathers in this zone (fig. 79).
Dad taught me to sail on Mission Bay in 1961. It was ideal as you got the ocean breeze without waves. I ended up in Lala Land when dad went to UCLA. We visited San Diego often. When I got married we take long weekends in San Diego, and stay in a motel on Mission Bay. My wife loved walking on the Islands next to the calm water. While I watched Hydroplans on TV, I never attended a race. I did take advantage of the motels and facilities that were built for the races. The prices and quality were very good when there wasn't racing. I do remember old timers talking about what a miserable place the area was before reclamation. It was another time when wet lands could be reclaimed without much opposition.
Near the Kendall-Frost Mission Bay Marsh Reserve there are a few viewpoints where you can see a piece of what it looked like - but in the past the entire bay was that kind of marshy landscape.
My Grandmother lived in De anza Cove from the early 50' until her death in 64', she worked at Consolidated through WW2. My Dad waded across the bay to go to school in the 40's...
I wouldn’t have. I’m glad it wasn’t included. I don’t like the event and it’s not the best use of that land for that time but money buys permits. OTL is lame. 😒 32 yrs here in San Diego and I’m glad I never wasted one minute supporting that event or playing it
The area where Fiesta Island and the South Shores park and boat launch are located, was actually a landfill that operated unregulated in the 1950s, and the possible pollution created by the dumping of industrial wastes are why that area has never been developed into anything.
*_Great Video and History of Mission Bay..._* I live in Washington State where we also love our Lakes, Rivers, and Boat Races... we have 2 every Year... Seafair in Seattle and another in the Tri-Cities... I love San Diego and have been there twice... once I stayed at the Del Coronado and the other time at San Diego Mission Bay Resort... I plan on returning again Soon... I love studying the History of San Diego area including Mission Bay... both have a amazing Story to tell... glad you have taken time to tell Story from your Perspective... *_Thank You..._* (sjr)
This would be a great place for an annual rowing event too. A good name would be The Sam Diego Crew Classic Just funnin. Thanks for the video. Nice work. And to all my rowing friends who have spent millions of meters on MB Chin Chin.
My family moved from Detroit in 1968 (I was 7) and lived in a travel trailer for 8 months at the De Anza Cove resort while my folks looked for a place to settle (Escondido) and Dad found work (NCR in Rancho Bernardo) Us kids would walk to school through the golf course. What great memories playing at the cove in the water and the swings, riding our bikes through the mobile home areas with the Christmas lights all lit up.
Great story - it seems like it was very nice there back then. There’s a lot of change coming to that area - hopefully they can restore and improve everything.
Very well done. I grew up on Mission Bay, grandma had a house on the bay in north OB before the flood control waterway was built, we’d go fishing off the beach for halibut, perch and croakers. We also clammed on the bay and would bring home buckets of clams and scallops. I remember boating before the dredging when it was mud flats and reeds with narrow channels.
@@Voyagerhq I remember it well. The effect was to give the family a place to water ski. Fishing the back bay changed and the clamming areas were dredged but It was an overall plus as designed.
Nice presentation. I grew up in San Diego and remember, in the 1950s, my brother and I trying to hold our breath in the back seat of the car as Dad drove past the "bay." It stank!!! and I wondered how anyone could live in Clairmont. I did not know about the ancient past or about the rerouting of the river. I do remember my father saying developers were crazy to build in Mission Valley because it was a river bed. I think of Dad every time Fashion Valley floods with rain. As Dad would say, "It's not a flood, it's a river bed."
Thanks for sharing. I love hearing stories about San Diego back then. I’m working on a video about the history of San Diego Bay and there are lots of great stories there 🙂
Thanks for thre video. I grew up in Pacific Beach from 1965 up on the hill. I was surprised, however, that you didn't spend any time on the over-the-line tournaments on fFesta Island for over 50 years, since it is a local San Diego sport.
Ohhh cool, I grew up in Mission Beach. I now ride the boardwalk with bike groups at night with lighted up bikes, which you so in the beginning of this video.
It’s an invasion and entitlement, those bike groups are rude and bully areas of the board walk and expect them to be treated and respected like they are locals or something. They are new and young of a precession and are not a San Diego or PB MB staple. They were never a thing in 1990s and 2000s this is a new invention and they come from out east and other towns and act like they own the place and are locals. Terrible rude attitudes of entitlement. Bad people. Especially the low riders at felspar boardwalk. They literally park their bikes showing them off like a car show in the street. Literally blocking the street where people would normally and have been doing for half a century pull up to look at the beach in their cars for a moment and unload family and gear for the beach and surfers would do the half turn around to check the waves but now these bike GANGS literally have their bikes all parked in the street and showing them off like anyone wants to see them or thinks they’re cool. The bike gangs of today are not historic and do not have any long standing tradition and are just new menaces. Even the hipster wanna be burning man losers. Ha. They’re just as annoying and pathetic. Rolling around like they’re entitled as well. PB and MB have gone to chit since covid and people in just a few years lately have ruined the peaceful vibe and it’s now dangerous and all these people from east county come and trash the place for a couple days and leave it worse than they came. Trying to turn the board walk into a freak show like Venice is lame. Destroying the vibe of PB and MB. It’s ruined now in just a couple years because of your groups .
@@Voyagerhq that’s really interesting!!, I spend a lot of time at liberty station. I really can’t picture the river connecting there but that’s super cool to know. I’d love to see a map when the river was connected to sd bay
@@TheOG13s yes the water running parallel to Liberty Station Park was the original river outlet. Now it is a closed bay mostly used for paddle boarding 🙂
This is the story of much of californias former coastal wetlands. Thankfully what remains is protected but there is hardly any left and some of the species specialized to them are barely hanging on
The area around South shores park used to be a landfill. About 15 feet below the surface. The area wasn’t lined with materials to prevent leaking. There is possibly some chemical making their way into the groundwater in the area. The best thing is not to swim in those areas. Most people recommend staying west of Ingram Bridge for swimming.
he forgot to mention how polluted the bay is because it used to be a land fill ! flesh eating bacteria live in these waters for years and years ,.. if you could water ski in your toilet - it might look like this !
I’m curious where was the dump and slaughter house? I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about that era. Growing up in SD I used to hear there was a sewage plant on Fiesta Island but I don’t know for sure. Thanks!
@@Voyagerhq Let me know if you see TWO messages by me. Sometimes people say RUclips doesn't like posting links. So I'll post a link to a photo in a separate comment. I was born in 1956 and lived at the top of Overlook Heights for 20 years (I live about 4 miles from there now). The Cudahy meat packing plant and dump had shut down by then but the buildings were still there and you could sometimes still smell them if the wind was blowing the right direction. The meat packing plant was at the southwest corner of the bay a little toward the water from and a bit south of where a bridge at the end of Pacific Highway crosses Highway 5 today. I think the city dump was where the dog run area is now at the south end of Fiesta Island. See the photo link in my next comment. Link apparently didn't work. Search for: John Fry Productions
I could not see the link probably for the reason you mentioned - but I looked up Cudahy meat packing plant and found pictures. I can see it was near where Sea World Drive, Friars Road and Pacific Coast Highway meet. And now I see directly to the west the dump was where South Shores Boat Launching Area is today. Fascinating, thank you for that information. I grew up close by so this information is very interesting.
@@Voyagerhq Let's see if this works because after I tried posting the link, my next couple text-only comments didn't show up either. Try searching for John Fry Productions. It's his site I was trying to link to.
@@Voyagerhq before that it was a world class estuary. A dredged out fun park is certainly cleaner than a waste dump, but both were and are devoid of the rich natural life that once themed there.
So, the great hero of "motorsports" on water dies in his early fifties trying to go ever faster ? Hardly seems like someone who should be lionized or held up as someone to be emulated. The lust for speed is not a virtue. Sure, it is quite impressive, and lots of money gets made, etc. And it is really VERY noisy. That 'speed lust' kills many thousands yearly on the highways - it should not be idolized. Why not something futuristic? Life affirming ! Peace.
@@Redwaterman65 the bike gangs and lame pathetic wanna-burners are so embarrassing. PB and MB are now ruined after OB already lost decades ago. That was always trashy loser territory. But now the east county trash has tried to pathetically make PB like a lame lame version of Venice beach with the boardwalk bad versions of entertainment. These are fakes and scammers and bad performers. Jeff Garlin came to American comedy club once and he said he stayed at the crystal pier houses and he abandoned his whole set material and instead just ripped PB a new one for an hour detailing his night out with his wife to get food in PB. It was epic hearing him just rip the place and people apart!🤣🤣😂😂 PB is a sad disappointment these days and lost all charm, it’s sat county trash now just chitting on it for a couple days a week and then they leave and come back the next weekend and do it again. The bike gangs all of the performers were never here just 8/10yrs ago. Covid turned it to chit. Go home or act right losers. We’re not telling you not to come but lose your ghetto trashy attitude in the lame place you live, don’t come here and trash our town. Beat it kooks! 🤣
I went to Mission Bay High. This was back in the early 60s. There was a gal that swam across the bay to school because she was training for the Olympics and I often surfed before school. MBHS was very water-oriented and let us two females have first period gym so that we could shower before the other classes. The guys that surfed also were allowed first period gym. It was a great high school, I hope it still is.
@@partridgepear it is :)
I met someone who swam across to go to work at SeaWorld.😂
Definitely isn’t the school it used to be, surfing has no place in the school anymore sadly
This is so well done! As much time as I’ve spent at Mission Bay, I didn’t know this much of the history. Thanks for sharing. Keep up the great videos!
Thank you! I’ve only recently learned the history and it sheds a new light and appreciation for Mission Bay.
I lived on mission Beach for 3 years in 1990..... Walk to mission Bay many times, thoroughly enjoyed it..... Many many memories.... Miss that place would love to go back and live there again... Peter ❤
As a 34-year volunteer of BAYFAIR I say thank you. You hit all of the point to describe what Mission Bay is and what the race is .
Thank you, it’s a great event and we love visiting.
As a history buff, I have to post this excerpt from a U of California paper published in the 1980s:
The coastal lowland constituting Pacific and Mission beaches rests on the former delta of the San Diego River (fig. 86). There is one slightly elevated portion at Crown Point, which is an extension of the La Jolla terrace. The alluvium extends almost to Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach where it is replaced by a natural barrier across Mission Bay. The community of Mission Beach to the south is constructed on this barrier and has been protected in recent years from wave erosion by seawalls. Waves have occasionally swept over the walls and into the streets. The southern part of Mission Beach is a sand spit built across Mission Bay. The San Diego River occupies a rather broad valley extending east and west and entering Mission Bay, where it has deposited a considerable amount of alluvial material. The mouth of the river has been greatly modified by man to form a delta for the flatland between the northern margin of Point Loma and the lowland around Old Town.
The beach terminates before forming a complete barrier across the mouth of the bay. The tide is sufficient to keep the mouth open, and a flood channel has been built across the beach to carry floodwaters from Mission Bay to the sea. It is very doubtful whether this outlet could carry the volume of floodwater that could sweep down the valley in a repetition of the great floods of 1862, 1884, 1889, and 1891, or even subsequent smaller floods. In fact, if the reservoirs were full, as they are as this is being written, heavy rain in the adjacent mountains might render the flood channel useless (fig. 87). Three jetties built across the mouth of Mission Bay have cut off the supply of sand from Mission Beach to Ocean Beach, and as a result, the cliffs at Ocean Beach have receded considerably. Sand has been introduced from north of the jetties to prevent serious erosion of that community.
San Diego is the oldest city on the west coast. It grew around the Mission San Diego de Alcala, founded by Father Junipero Serra in 1769 (Pourade 1960:7). San Diego Harbor had been discovered more than 200 years earlier, in September 1542, by Rodriquez Cabrillo (Pourade 1960:49). Presently the harbor is kept open by tidal currents, with the exception of a sandbar that has to be dredged from time to time. It is the best protected natural harbor on the southern California coast. Mission Bay, formerly called False Bay, was deep enough up until 1810 to allow even relatively deep draft vessels to enter (U. S. Congress 1853:111).
During the early nineteenth century southern California rivers seem to have changed their courses periodically as the result of numerous floods. Prior to 1821, the San Diego River usually entered San Diego Harbor. In the fall of 1821, however, a flood changed the river channel in one night, and the greater volume of the flow was diverted into what was then known as False Bay, leaving only a small stream still flowing into the harbor (J. C. Hayes 1874). This flood was remarkable in that no rain fell along the coast. The river was later observed to flow into San Diego Harbor in 1849 and 1856, and the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map of 1859 shows it to be flowing there once again. Because of the high deposition rate of the river, which threatened to ruin San Diego Bay as a harbor, the federal government diverted the flow into Mission Bay and built a levee embankment of earth extending from near Old Town to Point Loma in the fall of 1853 (Derby 1853). Later that year, heavy rains caused the river to change course once again, washing out part of the levee and resuming its old course into the harbor (San Diego Herald 1855). The worst flood in this area was in 1862, appropriately called the Noachian Deluge, and was of special significance because it had a bearing on the Civil War. In San Diego, Mission Valley was inundated, and houses in lower Old Town were flooded when severe winds from a sea storm from the south backed the water up from the bay into the river (Pourade 1964:250). This flood was very significant because it held its peak for over twenty-four hours. In 1876, the levee was reconstructed, and no further diversions into San Diego Bay have occurred. Since then, a considerable volume of sediment has been added to the San Diego River delta in Mission Bay from occasional floods.
In 1935 El Capitan Dam was constructed 27 miles up the San Diego River; this reduced the sediment entering the bay considerably. An earlier dam was overtopped in 1916, increasing the floodwaters coming down Mission Valley at the time. The Mission Bay and San Diego River jetties were built in 1948, at a time when the shore of the bay was subject to alternating periods of recession and advance. By February 1951, the river levees had been connected to the jetties. All tidal flow was confined to a new channel. Since the river discharges only during flooding, the middle channel was soon completely filled. The channels were finished by 1955, after various difficulties were overcome and the jetties were considerably lengthened so that shallow bars would not form in the entrance. Extensive dredging was done in Mission Bay to make the channel deep enough for a yacht basin, and other areas were developed to accommodate swimming and other recreational activities (figs. 88a , 88b ).
The community of Ocean Beach extends south into Sunset Cliffs, a residential area in the city of San Diego at the north end of Point Loma. The northern part of Ocean Beach is laid out on a remnant of the old delta deposit of the San Diego River plus sand dunes (fig. 89). Historically, the beach in this area was subject to periods of accretion following floods. Since the building of the San Diego River jetties, the beach has had to be maintained by the spoil from dredging.
South of Ocean Beach the coast rises, consisting of Cretaceous and Pleistocene sedimentary formations, forming the scenic Sunset Cliffs area of Point Loma. The point itself rises to a height of about 400 feet, with steep sides at the southern end. The structure of this area, which forms a counterpart to Soledad Mountain, is described by Kennedy (1975a , 1975b ).
It was noted by Kennedy (1973) that sea cliff retreat at Sunset Cliffs amounted to three feet in the last seventy-five years, or about two inches per year. Where a cave roof collapsed, however, local retreat could be much greater. In recent years, rapid retreat has endangered the road along the cliff, necessitating the dumping of concrete debris at several locations (fig. 90). Unfortunately, the debris has actually accelerated erosion by grinding away at the cliff face, aided by the wave action throwing the coarser material against the cliffs, as shown in our study at Oceanside (Kuhn and Shepard 1980).
As evidenced from examination of photographs taken in 1938, 1946, and again in 1968 (figs. 91a , 91b , 91c ), originally there was an offshore arch and another attached to the cliff. By 1945, the longshore arch had collapsed, and the offshore arch was well developed. In 1968, only a small pedestal remained of the offshore arch, and the isolated rock near the former cliff arch had completely disappeared. Also, a large quantity of concrete and asphalt debris had been dumped down the cliff to retard further erosion.
Interesting read. Thanks for that info!
@@Voyagerhq Here is the document: Sea Cliffs, Beaches, and Coastal Valleys of San Diego County
Some Amazing Histories and Some Horrifying Implications
Gerald G. Kuhn
Francis P. Shepard
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford
© 1984 The Regents of the University of California
@@Voyagerhq My favorite part is the Scripp's Institute portion of the study. The professionals that knew better than to build on the cliffs, could not resist!!!
We have considerable knowledge of the history of the alluvial cliffs at the northern end of the La Jolla section of coast. The first buildings of the Scripps Institution were located just a few feet inside this terrace (fig. 73). Apparently, the builders did not realize that this area was subject to rapid retreat, on the order of a foot or more per year, as was established by repeated measurements (Vaughan 1932). This was actually known earlier than Vaughan's work because seawalls had already been constructed in front of the Scripps buildings (Hanna 1926:233); nonetheless, retreat continued north and south of the wall until about 1946.
The erosion was found to be related to the fact that the sand beach was several hundred feet wide at low tide in the summer and was subject to depletion during winter storms (Shepard and Grant 1947). Generally, the erosion began as a series of sand cusps, after which the waves completely removed the sand from the beach to expose underlying gravel and sometimes the underlying semi consolidated alluvial formation (fig. 74a ). During late winter storms, this allowed the waves, with the help of cobbles, to undercut the alluvial cliffs and thereby produce the annual retreat. Beginning in 1946, however, the storms became less violent, and the beaches were not appreciably cut away in the winters, so the smaller waves that reached the cliffs were not capable of undermining them. Instead, over the next thirty years, most of the bluffs gradually became less steep, and vegetation became well established on the slopes. Only an occasional storm did any cutting, and then it was at the cliff base.
As a result, the builders, who rarely show interest in anything that may have happened more than a few years in the past, began building homes all along these apparently stable bluffs and filled canyons, some even extending support columns out over the inner beach. This practice was curtailed by the California Coastal Commission, however, in the 1970s.
In January 1978 the first severe storms in thirty years occurred and panic followed (Kuhn and Shepard 1979b ). Desperate measures of all sorts were tried in an effort to stop the erosion of the alluvial bluffs, which had been postponed for so long. In one threatened area, the homeowners obtained old cars and drove them onto the beach, hoping they would buffer the cliffs from the waves (fig. 74b ). The cars were soon smashed to pieces, posing little resistance to the high surf and leaving a pile of glass and steel frames on the beach. The steel frames were removed by the homeowners, and concrete was poured over riprap in another attempt to stop the waves (fig. 74c ), but the waves broke over the existing concrete wall, causing it to collapse (fig. 74d ) and greatly accelerating erosion of the adjacent property (fig. 74e ).
Elsewhere seawalls were begun. This method, however, was only partially successful, as some collapsed while being built. As this book is being written, most of the homes are protected by a substantial, continuous seawall (fig. 74f ), and only one small section at Scripps Institution remains unprotected. This last site is now being threatened, as evidenced by a number of cracks that became visible in the winter of 1982 in the pavement of the parking lot there. These cracks have since been filled. During the large storms of January to March 1983, however, the alluvial cliffs retreated about three feet as a result of cobble abrasion, and the Scripps wooden stairs collapsed, necessitating their closure for public safety.
One of the last sections to be protected by a seawall was the Marine Biology Building at Scripps (fig. 75). This was a sore point with university architects who located the building on a low terrace of alluvium, about fifteen feet from its cliffed margin. They apparently failed to utilize studies showing that this margin had retreated some fifty-six feet over a sixty-three-year period from 1912 to 1975 (Hannan 1975). They even graded the outer terrace, which added to the erosion potential, and allowed pipes that drained water from the laboratories of the building to run out under the building margin, which only further eroded underlying semiconsolidated rock formations. The results should have been anticipated. The terrace margin was cut away during the first year the building was occupied, and serious sagging of the floor occurred. A seawall was then built, and other measures were taken to prevent further damage to the new building. Just north of the building, over fifty Indian burial sites have been uncovered in the cliffs. Carbon-14 dating shows them to be from 5,460 to 7,370 years old (Shumway et al. 1961). A fossil horse bone found directly south of the building yielded an age of 55,000 years as determined by amino acid (Bada et al. 1974).
A curiosity observed in the beach north of Scripps Institution pier is the long, concretionary rock extending out from the shore. It forms a sort of dike that is well exposed each winter, when the sand is cut away from either side. Photographs dating back to 1943 show that erosion has gradually removed the outer portion of the concretion and, as blocks became detached, they were ground into sand (Emery and Kuhn 1980). South of the alluvial cliff zone is a barrier beach. It continues for more than half a mile, where it terminates south of the beach club in the sandstone cliffs. There is evidence that a considerable lagoon once existed inside this barrier, as indicated from soil foundation cores and from the fact that the lower part of the old lagoon became submerged in heavy rains (fig. 76). Extensive artificial infilling occurred during the recent dry decades, and a portion of what is now known as La Jolla Shores was created. This lagoon was partly filled by the runoff from Hidden Valley. There are indications that at one time a barrier also existed at a somewhat higher level, to the north, as can be observed by the small terrace level when following the road south from Scripps Institution. The Marine Room Restaurant at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club was damaged by several storms in the 1940s (fig. 77) and sustained extensive damage again in 1983.
The La Jolla coast is somewhat unique in having two submarine canyons that extend virtually in to the beach (fig. 78). One of these canyons is located off the cliffs north of Scripps Institution, and the other is off the south end of the long beach at La Jolla Shores. Both canyons are rather clearly related to the land valleys at their heads. The northern one, Scripps Canyon, extends southward in an almost straight line and has vertical, and even overhanging, walls all along its length for about a mile out, where it joins the less precipitous La Jolla Canyon. One unique feature of Scripps Canyon is its constantly changing depths. It fills gradually for a number of feet, and then a slide, sometimes combined with a turbidity current, carries the sediment seaward, often with enough force to remove large boulders along its course. It has several side canyons at its head and, from time to time, new or old buried tributaries are apparently uncovered, which may subsequently be refilled.
La Jolla Canyon has steep sides and a vertical headwall but is generally less precipitous than Scripps Canyon. It extends for thirty-three miles seaward in a general southwest direction and enters San Diego Trough twenty-seven miles off the coast at a depth of 3,600 feet. Dives into the head of the canyon show it to be unstable, and the character of the bottom changes at frequent intervals of time. The surrounding terrace has yielded many artifacts, some dated at approximately 4,200 years old. There is substantial evidence that the head has been retreating shoreward at an average rate of about one inch per year for the past few thousand years (Shepard and Dill 1966:57-58). Shepard and Dill (1966) also showed that the retreat from 1950 to 1964 was over two feet per year. An interesting feature of La Jolla Canyon is the effect it has on the waves on the long beach at La Jolla Shores. The waves are almost always much smaller at the head of the canyon, owing to wave divergence as the crests move shoreward up the canyon. Conversely, they are much larger at the north end of the beach where the waves converge, so there may be two-foot breakers at the canyon head and ten-foot breakers in the northern convergence, half a mile up the beach. Thus, swimming is easier at the canyon head, and huge numbers of bathers swim there every day in the summer, whereas surfers are relegated to the northern convergence, where they abound. The effects also relate to the rip currents which are an ever-present danger. These rips are in the area between the lowest and highest waves, and the lifeguards are on constant alert for unwary bathers in this zone (fig. 79).
Dad taught me to sail on Mission Bay in 1961. It was ideal as you got the ocean breeze without waves. I ended up in Lala Land when dad went to UCLA. We visited San Diego often. When I got married we take long weekends in San Diego, and stay in a motel on Mission Bay. My wife loved walking on the Islands next to the calm water. While I watched Hydroplans on TV, I never attended a race. I did take advantage of the motels and facilities that were built for the races. The prices and quality were very good when there wasn't racing.
I do remember old timers talking about what a miserable place the area was before reclamation. It was another time when wet lands could be reclaimed without much opposition.
When going to the area I always check out hotel prices in Mission Bay, but the prices are always too high for me.
Wow, it would be amazing to see mission bay as a sprawling wetland. Must have been beautiful!
Not that it should be now since, you know, it’s an aquatic park now lmao
Near the Kendall-Frost Mission Bay Marsh Reserve there are a few viewpoints where you can see a piece of what it looked like - but in the past the entire bay was that kind of marshy landscape.
They help with the storytelling =)
All sand dunes when I was a kid
I lived here on my sailboat for 4 years, paid 400 a month ! Loved it
Mission Bay seems like a great place to dock a houseboat.
My Grandmother lived in De anza Cove from the early 50' until her death in 64', she worked at Consolidated through WW2. My Dad waded across the bay to go to school in the 40's...
I would've liked some mention of the Over-the-Line tournaments held there and , of course, some footage.
That’s a good suggestion
I wouldn’t have. I’m glad it wasn’t included. I don’t like the event and it’s not the best use of that land for that time but money buys permits. OTL is lame. 😒 32 yrs here in San Diego and I’m glad I never wasted one minute supporting that event or playing it
Mission Bay! Where I learned to slalom, trick, & jump ski & play OTL softball.
Just a note, Juan Carrillo was Portuguese.
@@YourAbeFroemann he worked for Spain and Portugal is on the same peninsula so close enough
@@kevinwilt3918 Not really. Separate country, separate culture, separate sailing.
The area where Fiesta Island and the South Shores park and boat launch are located, was actually a landfill that operated unregulated in the 1950s, and the possible pollution created by the dumping of industrial wastes are why that area has never been developed into anything.
I’ve wondered why there wasn’t anything there but unused land. Thank you for sharing!
Yes, Fiesta Island was created by the dredging of the landfill.
You want it to be developed into something? It's a nice area to fly model planes.
@@jamessisk1267 when did I say that?
@@kind2311 My bad brother. 😂 You’re right. The pollution has stopped development by the city for many years. Could be for the better.
*_Great Video and History of Mission Bay..._* I live in Washington State where we also love our Lakes, Rivers, and Boat Races... we have 2 every Year... Seafair in Seattle and another in the Tri-Cities...
I love San Diego and have been there twice... once I stayed at the Del Coronado and the other time at San Diego Mission Bay Resort... I plan on returning again Soon...
I love studying the History of San Diego area including Mission Bay... both have a amazing Story to tell... glad you have taken time to tell Story from your Perspective...
*_Thank You..._* (sjr)
This would be a great place for an annual rowing event too.
A good name would be The Sam Diego Crew Classic
Just funnin.
Thanks for the video. Nice work.
And to all my rowing friends who have spent millions of meters on MB
Chin Chin.
Sounds like a good event to cover in the future 😉
I miss those boat races. Was there when Miss Circus Circus flipped 1989-1990 with my dad. RIP Dad
My family moved from Detroit in 1968 (I was 7) and lived in a travel trailer for 8 months at the De Anza Cove resort while my folks looked for a place to settle (Escondido) and Dad found work (NCR in Rancho Bernardo) Us kids would walk to school through the golf course. What great memories playing at the cove in the water and the swings, riding our bikes through the mobile home areas with the Christmas lights all lit up.
Great story - it seems like it was very nice there back then. There’s a lot of change coming to that area - hopefully they can restore and improve everything.
@@VoyagerhqIt’s been so long in the making. It’ll be interesting to see.
Very well done. I grew up on Mission Bay, grandma had a house on the bay in north OB before the flood control waterway was built, we’d go fishing off the beach for halibut, perch and croakers. We also clammed on the bay and would bring home buckets of clams and scallops. I remember boating before the dredging when it was mud flats and reeds with narrow channels.
That’s incredible, it would have been nice to see how it was back then. I couldn’t find many photos or archival footage.
@@Voyagerhq this was back in the late 40’s.
I see, right before they began reconstructing the bay. I wonder do you remember the construction of Mission Bay and did it affect your family?
@@Voyagerhq I remember it well. The effect was to give the family a place to water ski. Fishing the back bay changed and the clamming areas were dredged but It was an overall plus as designed.
Nice presentation. I grew up in San Diego and remember, in the 1950s, my brother and I trying to hold our breath in the back seat of the car as Dad drove past the "bay." It stank!!! and I wondered how anyone could live in Clairmont. I did not know about the ancient past or about the rerouting of the river. I do remember my father saying developers were crazy to build in Mission Valley because it was a river bed. I think of Dad every time Fashion Valley floods with rain. As Dad would say, "It's not a flood, it's a river bed."
Thanks for sharing. I love hearing stories about San Diego back then. I’m working on a video about the history of San Diego Bay and there are lots of great stories there 🙂
Thanks for thre video. I grew up in Pacific Beach from 1965 up on the hill. I was surprised, however, that you didn't spend any time on the over-the-line tournaments on fFesta Island for over 50 years, since it is a local San Diego sport.
That’s a great suggestion
Ohhh cool, I grew up in Mission Beach. I now ride the boardwalk with bike groups at night with lighted up bikes, which you so in the beginning of this video.
Thats looks like a lot of fun!
It’s an invasion and entitlement, those bike groups are rude and bully areas of the board walk and expect them to be treated and respected like they are locals or something. They are new and young of a precession and are not a San Diego or PB MB staple. They were never a thing in 1990s and 2000s this is a new invention and they come from out east and other towns and act like they own the place and are locals. Terrible rude attitudes of entitlement. Bad people. Especially the low riders at felspar boardwalk. They literally park their bikes showing them off like a car show in the street. Literally blocking the street where people would normally and have been doing for half a century pull up to look at the beach in their cars for a moment and unload family and gear for the beach and surfers would do the half turn around to check the waves but now these bike GANGS literally have their bikes all parked in the street and showing them off like anyone wants to see them or thinks they’re cool.
The bike gangs of today are not historic and do not have any long standing tradition and are just new menaces. Even the hipster wanna be burning man losers. Ha. They’re just as annoying and pathetic. Rolling around like they’re entitled as well. PB and MB have gone to chit since covid and people in just a few years lately have ruined the peaceful vibe and it’s now dangerous and all these people from east county come and trash the place for a couple days and leave it worse than they came.
Trying to turn the board walk into a freak show like Venice is lame. Destroying the vibe of PB and MB. It’s ruined now in just a couple years because of your groups .
Can we give a nod to Mrs. Rose Marie Starns? She worked tirelessly to promote Mission Bay as a destination vacation spot.
I will keep her in mind for future videos. Thanks for mentioning Rose Marie Starns
I believe she's the first one to reference False Bay as Mission Bay - in a poem entitled Mission Bay.
Ice Pops on a Cybertruck 9:25
People have been racing speed boats and paddle boarding on mission Bay for thousands of years
👽
We really did not know better then, but the salt water marshes are the some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on the planet.
I imagine the area looked a lot like Los Peñasquitos, San Deguito or San Elijo Lagoon.
Cool to know that the San Diego river got destroyed by us when we changed the direction. I wondering how good it was before that.
The river used to meet the San Diego bay close to where Liberty Station is now by Point Loma. It must have looked much different back then.
@@Voyagerhq that’s really interesting!!, I spend a lot of time at liberty station. I really can’t picture the river connecting there but that’s super cool to know. I’d love to see a map when the river was connected to sd bay
@@TheOG13s yes the water running parallel to Liberty Station Park was the original river outlet. Now it is a closed bay mostly used for paddle boarding 🙂
This is the story of much of californias former coastal wetlands. Thankfully what remains is protected but there is hardly any left and some of the species specialized to them are barely hanging on
That's the problem with specialized species - they can't adapt.
Liked
Thanks! 😊
Anybody know anything about MB level of pollution in the water? I read/heard of chemical dumping until as early as the mid 70s...
The area around South shores park used to be a landfill. About 15 feet below the surface. The area wasn’t lined with materials to prevent leaking. There is possibly some chemical making their way into the groundwater in the area. The best thing is not to swim in those areas. Most people recommend staying west of Ingram Bridge for swimming.
I remember when it was all sand dunes, no people, just me everyday
There aren’t many pictures of Mission Bay at that time. Would be nice to see the dunes as you’ve described.
he forgot to mention how polluted the bay is because it used to be a land fill ! flesh eating bacteria live in these waters for years and years ,.. if you could water ski in your toilet - it might look like this !
I think a video about the landfill would be a good one.
Not too "hidden" from those of us who lived at the top of the hill ever since it was a swamp, a pork slaughter house and the city dump. 😁😎
I’m curious where was the dump and slaughter house? I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about that era. Growing up in SD I used to hear there was a sewage plant on Fiesta Island but I don’t know for sure. Thanks!
@@Voyagerhq Let me know if you see TWO messages by me. Sometimes people say RUclips doesn't like posting links. So I'll post a link to a photo in a separate comment.
I was born in 1956 and lived at the top of Overlook Heights for 20 years (I live about 4 miles from there now). The Cudahy meat packing plant and dump had shut down by then but the buildings were still there and you could sometimes still smell them if the wind was blowing the right direction.
The meat packing plant was at the southwest corner of the bay a little toward the water from and a bit south of where a bridge at the end of Pacific Highway crosses Highway 5 today.
I think the city dump was where the dog run area is now at the south end of Fiesta Island.
See the photo link in my next comment.
Link apparently didn't work. Search for: John Fry Productions
I could not see the link probably for the reason you mentioned - but I looked up Cudahy meat packing plant and found pictures. I can see it was near where Sea World Drive, Friars Road and Pacific Coast Highway meet. And now I see directly to the west the dump was where South Shores Boat Launching Area is today. Fascinating, thank you for that information. I grew up close by so this information is very interesting.
@@Voyagerhq Let's see if this works because after I tried posting the link, my next couple text-only comments didn't show up either. Try searching for John Fry Productions. It's his site I was trying to link to.
an enviormental tragedy
I don’t know if they could do it today.
Can't even spell right. You're the problem.
Now the bay is filled with homeless shit, piss and trash from Rose Creek. Every time it rains hard, all that shit gets swept into the bay.
Also south shores park was a landfill for many years.
Environmental disaster
I learned that in the 1940’s the area by SeaWorld was an industrial waste dump. Unfortunate how things were back then.
@@Voyagerhq before that it was a world class estuary. A dredged out fun park is certainly cleaner than a waste dump, but both were and are devoid of the rich natural life that once themed there.
....teemed (thx autospell)
So, the great hero of "motorsports" on water dies in his early fifties trying to go ever faster ? Hardly seems like someone who should be lionized or held up as someone to be emulated. The lust for speed is not a virtue. Sure, it is quite impressive, and lots of money gets made, etc. And it is really VERY noisy. That 'speed lust' kills many thousands yearly on the highways - it should not be idolized. Why not something futuristic? Life affirming ! Peace.
It seems like Muncey was recognized by the city for bringing boat racing to San Diego. I agree speed on the roads is incredibly dangerous.
Karen strikes again
@@Redwaterman65 the bike gangs and lame pathetic wanna-burners are so embarrassing.
PB and MB are now ruined after OB already lost decades ago. That was always trashy loser territory. But now the east county trash has tried to pathetically make PB like a lame lame version of Venice beach with the boardwalk bad versions of entertainment. These are fakes and scammers and bad performers.
Jeff Garlin came to American comedy club once and he said he stayed at the crystal pier houses and he abandoned his whole set material and instead just ripped PB a new one for an hour detailing his night out with his wife to get food in PB. It was epic hearing him just rip the place and people apart!🤣🤣😂😂 PB is a sad disappointment these days and lost all charm, it’s sat county trash now just chitting on it for a couple days a week and then they leave and come back the next weekend and do it again. The bike gangs all of the performers were never here just 8/10yrs ago. Covid turned it to chit. Go home or act right losers. We’re not telling you not to come but lose your ghetto trashy attitude in the lame place you live, don’t come here and trash our town. Beat it kooks! 🤣
Home sweet home..