San Diego Bay encompasses 22 square miles of sheltered Pacific waters, a natural deepwater harbor that has anchored the city's identity since Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo dropped anchor off Point Loma in 1542. By 1919, the U.S. Navy had established its Pacific Fleet headquarters along the eastern shore, a presence that now spans 57,000 active-duty personnel and defines the harbor's skyline with gray-hulled carriers and destroyers berthed at Naval Base San Diego, the largest surface-ship base on the West Coast. A San Diego yacht tour traces this working waterfront from the Embarcadero north to Harbor Island, threading between commercial shipping lanes and recreational marinas. The bay's consistent 70-degree year-round water temperature and minimal tidal variation—rarely exceeding four feet—create ideal conditions for both novice sailors and seasoned captains. Coronado Bridge arcs 200 feet above the navigation channel, its 2.1-mile span connecting downtown to the peninsula where the Hotel del Coronado has occupied beachfront since 1888. Narrated harbor cruises depart from the Broadway Pier at 970 North Harbor Drive, the same dock where the Star of India—an 1863 iron-hulled barque and the world's oldest active sailing vessel—remains moored as part of the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Onboard commentary identifies the aircraft carrier USS Midway, decommissioned in 1992 and now a floating museum with 60 exhibits across four acres of flight deck. North Island Naval Air Station occupies the Coronado peninsula's northern tip, where aviators have trained since 1917 and where the distinctive roar of F/A-18 Super Hornets punctuates afternoon departures. Sailing charters navigate the Silver Strand, a seven-mile sandspit separating the bay from the Pacific, while sunset departures time their return to catch alpenglow on the Laguna Mountains 50 miles east. The bay sustains 500 species of fish and invertebrates, including leopard sharks that school in shallow eelgrass beds each summer and California sea lions that haul out on navigation buoys near the Zuniga Jetty.