(GPS: N33° 25.850 W118° 30.235)
Moving along I discovered the small barracks that was used by the Union during the Civil War. It is now the home of a yacht club. There is also a small public school here for the kids that live here that is connected with the Long Beach School District. I started to get closer to Catalina Harbor.
The interesting thing I discovered about this harbor is that not only were movies filmed here, but it is a graveyard for old ships. There are a bunch of them that have remains down below in the harbor.
Obviously, there are a lot of modern boats in this area as well. This following picture and then the next one that pans to the left was my first real stop of the day.
This is the where the Chinese pirate ship, the Ningpo, had its final resting place. Built in 1753 this boat was used for piracy, smuggling, slavery, battles, etc. It had quite a history doing these things in the waters near China. Eventually, it was captured and sold to Americans in 1911. It was displayed in various piers off of California, and then ended up here. It was used in a few movies here and visited as a tourist attraction, but in 1938 it caught on fire which might have been part of its use in a movie. That pretty much destroyed it for good, it’s remains were scavenged, and if there is anything left it's down below.
I went up a higher and looked back at this spot.
On the following website you can read all about the Ningpo, see some other pictures and art, including a postcard-like art picture that show the perspective from where I was at:
http://www.cawreckdivers.org/Wrecks/Ningpo.htm
There are a bunch of other links out there about this ship. Do a search for “Ningpo” and “Catalina” and you should be able to find a bunch of articles about it.
Two Harbors: Ships and Movies (Youtube Version)
Two Harbors: Ships and Movies (Vimeo Version)
The following tracks were sampled from Incompetech.com for the video:
At the Shore,
Reggae Sketch,
Creeping To Ship,
Evil Plan FX,
Evil March,
Trouble
Obviously, there are a lot of modern boats in this area as well. This following picture and then the next one that pans to the left was my first real stop of the day.
