Tag archives: Greg Gorga
On a sunny Spring Friday afternoon, the Santa Barbara community gathered to celebrate a powerful moment in maritime history – the unveiling of the Deepwater Diving Monument located at the entrance of the harbor. The 10-foot bronze statue of a diver is a tribute to the pioneering commercial divers whose innovations helped shape the modern […]
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum throbbed to the Caribbean beat as 140 guests celebrated a Love Boat cruise gala with head honcho Greg Gorga in all white officer’s uniform. Condor Express owner Hiroko Benko, who created a Santa Barbara Whale Heritage Area, and Sigrid Toye, a past board president and current board member, were presented […]
Santa Barbara Maritime Museum has just opened its latest illuminating exhibit, The Lure of Lighthouses & Dancing Waves, an impressive collection of more than 35 large-scale images and panoramic photographs of waves and lighthouses around the world taken by renowned Emmy Award-winning surfing photographer and videographer Dan Merkel. “I first met Dan when he joined […]
Social gridlock reigned at artist Colette Cosentino’s Atelier and Gallery on West Anapamu when she opened her latest exhibition in collaboration with former Sunstone Winey vintner Anna Rice, who is using Colette’s artwork for her labels on her wine, including the Brut Rosé and Chardonnay. “It’s the perfect melding,” says Anna, now owner of the […]
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) staff likes to tell you, “You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust your sails.” And so, they did. When they couldn’t have their fundraiser for two years in a row, they pivoted and came up with a different event. This was due to the legendary world-famous surfer […]
Barely 50 miles from downtown Santa Barbara is one of the most fascinating and important parts of the California coastline. Point Conception is the headland where the coast transitions between north-south and east-west orientation, a very rare delineation that works as a natural division between Southern and Northern California. It also marks the location of […]
There is a wonderful art exhibit of 55 naval paintings at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum awaiting your visit as soon as lockdown is over and executive director Greg Gorga can unlock the doors. The exhibit was scheduled to open December 3, 2020 until May 30, 2021. It’s sponsored by George H. & Olive J. Griffiths […]
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) just celebrated the 164th birthday of the lighting of the Point Conception Lighthouse. From 1856 to 1973 when it was decommissioned and updated with a new light, the Point Conception Lighthouse lens guarded the rocky and treacherous Pacific coast where the Santa Barbara Channel and the Pacific Ocean meet […]
If you want to have some fun and laughs, go to West Beach when the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) hold its annual Kardboard Kayak Races. This 17th year 32 teams entered the competition (three divisions of family fun and one division of the paddling pros (adult). Each team could have up to four people […]
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum also just opened its newest exhibit “Rum Running, Sailors & Prohibition” which covers more than 400 years of history and connects Santa Barbara to those times. Why Santa Barbara? Because we have more coastline than any other county in the United States including the Channel Islands. A perfect place to […]
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) held another of its lecture evenings, this one about “The Refugio Incident: A Wildlife Responder’s Perspective” as told by Elaine Ibarra. Elaine graduated from California State University at Channel Islands with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and is a trained and experienced oil spill responder. She had extensive volunteer […]
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) presented another of its nautical lectures, this time about the 1969 oil blowout and the birth of the environmental movement. Fifty years ago I was living in Europe, but even without cell phones we knew about the disaster in Santa Barbara, California. A blowout on Union Oil’s platform A […]
On Sunday, December 9th, the 32nd Annual Parade of Lights Boat Show was held at Stearns Wharf and seen along the city beachfront from west to east beaches. This year marked the return of the event from 2016, as SB Waterfront decided for the safety of our citizens to cancel it last year due to […]
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) opened its doors to a new exhibit. As executive director Greg Gorga told the visitors, “This is the largest exhibit the museum has ever had. The History of Oil in Santa Barbara Channel has been planned for many years.” As we all know when we come home from a […]
Jaws came alive at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) recently with the screening of shark movies by filmmakers Harry Rabin and Tom Piozet, along with Dr. Chris Lowe of the Cal State University Long Beach Shark Lab. It was a look behind the scenes of the Weather Channel’s show Into the Shark Zone and […]
What a perfect theme for the perfect place! That was the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) transformed into the White Star Line R.M.S. Titanic, the ship of dreams. As co-chairs David Bolton and Cindy Makela said, “Love Boat was too corny.” Titanic had drama. It took us back to April 15, 1912. The Titanic was […]
