Tuesday 29th April

 

The 'Bridge' into Coronado Island

'Doc' - note the putter!

Today the temperatures have, according to locals, been unseasonably hot. The car was registering the outside air temperature as 88F. We had a teetime booked for 2pm at the Coronado golf course, which is reputed to be the best value municipal course in the USA. We set off fairly early to spend the day at Coronado which is an area within the City of San Diego . The traffic was as usual heavy on the main I-5, but when we reached the outskirts of San Diego it all seemed to disappear off our road and was reasonably quiet in the centre. We passed San Diego airport which from an aircraft approach perspective is a bit like Hongkong - we had an airliner descend in front of us as we drove along.  The road engineering is on a grand scale and we crossed the 2.1 mile bridge on to the Coronado peninsular.

It really is a beautiful area particularly when there are blue cloudless skies reflecting in the water. We walked along the water's edge on the north coast and had a drink in a local cafe. The views across the bay towards San Diego centre were spectacular with all sorts of marine craft sailing off the mainland. There are several American navy bases in the area and there are many different ships based at the navy dockyards. There were also canoes, yachts and gin palaces on the water.

USS aircraft carrier 'Ronald Reagan'

Sunset at La Jolla

We arrived at the golf club, where there was a pleasant cool breeze blowing from the sea. We had planned to walk around the course as it is flat being near the coast, but (Liz) decided as it was so hot we should have a buggy. It took us nearly 5 hours to play the round so it was, I think, a sensible idea. We were paired up with 2 other men- 'Doc', who was nearly 90 - he still managed to hit the ball straight and accurately. He had been a pastor and had some golf jokes to tell us on the way round, although talking to him wasn't easy as he was very deaf. The other player was Robert, who reminded me of Phil Mickelson (except Robert's golf was awful) with shorter hair. He lived in San Diego so had an accent like Mickelson's and was also left handed. Both Doc and Robert left us at the 9th hole so we played the second half on our own. Some of the holes we played were along the water's edge which were very pretty and provided a cooling breeze.

We didn't finish our round of golf until 6.30pm so we drove up the coast road (historic highway 101) to find somewhere to eat.  We stopped at La Jolla and just caught the end of sunset - I wish we had been a few minutes earlier as it would have looked spectacular as the sun sank into the Pacific Ocean.  We found a very good Pizza restaurant in 'Del Mar'.