Sunny Jim's Sea Cave | |
---|---|
Location | San Diego-La Jolla Underwater Park |
Coordinates | 32°50′57″N117°16′13″W / 32.8491°N 117.2702°W |
Discovery | 1902 |
Visitors | 60,000 (2015) [1] |
Website | www |
Designated | April 28, 1999 |
Reference no. | 380 |
Sunny Jim's Sea Cave is a cave in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California. It is a popular tourist attraction in the area for its resemblance to the British cereal mascot Sunny Jim. The Cave Store, a gift shop above the cave, offers access to it for a fee. It is also the only underwater cave that can be accessed through land in California. [1] [2]
In 1902, German entrepreneur Gustav Schultz hired two Chinese laborers to dig out a tunnel from the gift shop, then Schultz's residence, to the caves below, one of which being Sunny Jim's Sea Cave. [3] [4] Schultz believed that tourists who wanted to access the sea caves below would pay money to use the tunnel. The laborers took two years to dig the entire area out only using a shovel and pickaxe. Schultz began to hold tours in 1905. [5] Originally, the cave was accessed through a rope, but a staircase was created not long after. L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , gave the cave its name. [6] [7] The cave was rumored to be used to transport whiskey illegally into San Diego during the Prohibition era. Bootleggers additionally used the area to transfer opium. The cave may have been also used to smuggle immigrants into the U.S. [8] Jim Allen bought the store in 1994. Before the acquisition, the business mostly made money only from selling seashells. [1]
The Cave Store was originally the residence of Gustav Schultz. It offers 15 to 20-minute-long group tours to the cave through a 145-step staircase. 90% of the store's revenue comes from entrance fees for the cave. [1] California sea lions can be occasionally heard from the cave. [3] It is possible to access the cave from the ocean, although the store prohibits people from entering the ocean from the viewing platform that visitors reach at the end of the staircase. [6]
La Jolla is a hilly, seaside neighborhood within the city of San Diego, California, occupying 7 miles (11 km) of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature of 70.5 °F (21.4 °C).
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) is the center for oceanography and Earth science based at the University of California, San Diego. Its main campus is located in La Jolla, with additional facilities in Point Loma.
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre on the campus of the University of California, San Diego.
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Birch Aquarium is a public aquarium in La Jolla, a community of San Diego, California. The aquarium serves as the public outreach center for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego with a little over half a million people visiting the aquarium each year. The aquarium houses more than 3,000 animals representing over 380 species. The hilltop site provides views of La Jolla Shores and the Pacific Ocean. The aquarium is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).
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The San Diego-La Jolla Underwater Park is the historical name for a marine reserve that includes the San Diego-Scripps Coastal Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) and Matlahuayl State Marine Reserve (SMR), adjoining marine protected areas that extend offshore from La Jolla in San Diego County on California's south coast.
San Diego-Scripps Coastal Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) and Matlahuayl State Marine Reserve (SMR) are adjoining marine protected areas that extend offshore from La Jolla in San Diego County on California's south coast. The two marine protected areas cover 2.51 square miles (6.5 km2).
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The Real World: San Diego is the twenty-sixth season of MTV's reality television series The Real World, which focuses on a group of diverse strangers living together for several months in a different city each season, as cameras follow their lives and interpersonal relationships. It is the sixth season of The Real World to be filmed in the Pacific States region of the United States, specifically in California after The Real World: Hollywood.
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Andreas Buchwald Rechnitzer was an American oceanographer. With Carl Hubbs, he discovered the striped yellow butterfly fish that served as the logo of the Birch Aquarium. He helped develop the first SCUBA diving training program for ocean scientists, which included such innovations as ditch-and-don, buddy breathing, and the buddy system. He was a member of the US Navy Office of Naval Research team that negotiated the purchase of the bathyscape Trieste, and was the scientist in charge of Project Nekton in 1960, during which the Trieste entered the Challenger Deep, the deepest surveyed point in the world's oceans. For this he received the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award. He joined the scientific staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, where he was the Oceanographer of the Navy from 1970 to 1984, and was the Senior Scientist at Science Applications International Corporation from 1985 to 1998.
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