By Mark Goodkin
San Diego Coast Life
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Cabrillo National Monument is a historic landmark and park near the tip of Point Loma in San Diego, CA. The monument commemorates explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s first landing at San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542. This Spanish explorer was the first European to visit what is now the west coast of the United States.
Cabrillo National Monument Park
The center piece of the national park is the tall monument of Cabrillo himself looking toward the San Diego Bay, considered a natural harbor at the time. The statute with bay is a popular backdrop for photo opportunities of families and friends.
Nearby the monument is the visitors center, which includes a large gift store, along with a theatre for viewing movies about the park and local history. Outside the visitors center are decks which face the bay. The decks have large stationary binoculars and educational pictorial displays about the bay, the park and the areas history.
These decks offer a panoramic view of San Diego Bay with Coronado and North Island in the foreground and the downtown San Diego skyline and Coronado Bay Bridge in the background. Farther south is Mexico.
Another feature of Cabrillo National Monument is the Old Point Loma Lighthouse, just a short distance along a trail, up the hill. The lighthouse, now a historic landmark, once guided sailing vessels into the harbor during the second half of the 1800s. The living quarters of the Keeper of the Lighthouse appear much as they did during the 1880s.