Anthony Arendt / Alamy
Newport Beach, Calif., was where the crew of the S.S. Minnow set out for a three-hour tour that lasted 98 episodes. Today, the best way to experience your own three-hour tour — and return safely — is by boat (for leisure) and board (for sport).
The first thing I “get” about Newport Harbor is that I’ll be hearing the word Balboa a lot. The famed 16th-century Spanish conquistador, explorer and (briefly) stowaway Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first New World discoverer to ply the
Pacific Ocean. Balboa searched for and collected plenty of gold in his 43 years, so it makes sense that he is commemorated everywhere in this glittering coastal section of
Newport Beach, Calif., — the city that is, according to some surveys, the wealthiest municipality in America.
Oceanfront near 21st Street
Ambient Images Inc./Alamy
Although it was once used for shipbuilding, today Newport Harbor is the epicenter of water play; in fact, it ranks as the largest recreational boat harbor on the
West Coast. Originally it was an estuary; when the estuary was dredged, artificial islands were created, the most beloved of which is Balboa Island, where the tidy homes are marked with hand-painted “cottage plates.” To Balboa Island’s west is Lido Isle; to Balboa Island’s east, the harbor feeds into the ocean. Hooking around both islands like a protective arm with a sharp fist at the end is Balboa Peninsula, which begins off the
Pacific Coast Highway and terminates, three miles later, at a romantic point of beachfront known as the Wedge.
Once at the end of Balboa Peninsula, past the Skee-Ball games and pizza parlors, there is no bridge back to the mainland, a configuration that lends the skinny landmass a special, end-of-the-world quality. That’s surely what the creators of Gilligan’s Island must have thought when they launched the S.S. Minnow out to sea past the rock jetty that extends out from the Wedge. Here, the beach is long and broad, with the Pacific Ocean slapping the shore in rolling aquamarine waves.
As a seaman, you’d really have to know the ropes and knots to cruise the Pacific. Better to stick inside the harbor, which is pleasantly twisty and surprising but utterly calm, where a first-time skipper can commandeer an electric Duffy boat or where a novice waterman can practice a steady stroke on a stand-up paddleboard.
Because I’m coming from my home in
Laguna Beach, which is just south of Newport Beach, I decide to access Balboa Peninsula via Balboa Island. The bridge from the mainland to Balboa Island spits me out right on Marine Avenue — that’s the island’s main drag, a charming and pedestrian-friendly destination dotted with establishments intended to fund dentists’ swimming pools: caramel apples at Too Sweet, saltwater taffy at Balboa Candy, and rival storefronts Dad’s Donut & Bakery Shop and Sugar ’n’ Spice claiming to sell the world’s best Balboa Bars, thick slabs of chocolate-dipped vanilla ice cream on a stick. Marine Avenue even has a dog boutique and bakery, Barney’s Barkery.
I pull over only to grab a chocolate-dipped cheesecake bar for fortification, find a prime parking space on Agate Avenue, then hop the Balboa Ferry, that tiny, local treasure and as pure a slice of Americana as one can find in Southern
California. The whitewashed boat, with its slightly bubbling paint job, has room for only three cars and about two dozen pedestrians, and it lists a bit. The trip to Balboa Peninsula takes only a few minutes and costs a buck, but it delivers me right beside Balboa Boat Rentals, where a Duffy costs $75 to $90 an hour and a stand-up paddleboard runs $25 an hour.