Tag archives: Santa Barbara Maritime Museum

The latest program at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) was a film called The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island. California 4th graders learn about her from a book called The Island of the Blue Dolphins. The story is true with a young woman and her son being left behind on San Nicolas Island […]

Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) is the keeper of our maritime history, some of it unique in the world. Marine biologist, educator, and naturalist Holly S. Lohuis recently shared with us stories and images from around the world showing why it is critical we understand both the ocean’s influence on us and vice versa. Throughout […]

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 […]

Prepare to be oar struck with the latest exhibition at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. Dorene White, a resident of Montecito for more than 30 years, and other members of SCAPE – Southern California Artists Painting for the Environment – will be exhibiting their colorful work. Dorene, a past president, is often seen at work […]

Kardboard Kapers It’s that time of year again: the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum’s 17th Annual Kardboard Kayak Races are coming to West Beach, Santa Barbara, on Saturday, July 6 from 12 noon to 3 pm. Get ready for some hilarity and family fun. SBMM’s Kardboard Kayak Races challenge families and teams to participate in a […]

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) recently had author Robin Lloyd for an evening to tell us what Havana, Cuba was like in the mid-1800s. That would be in our Civil War era. This is chronicled in Lloyd’s book, Harbor of Spies: A Novel of Historic Havana. This historical novel is set at the height […]

There were decidedly rum goings on at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum when it opened its latest exhibition, which runs through October 20. Rum Running, Sailors, and Prohibition covers more than 400 years of history and the origins of the liquor from the Caribbean’s sugar cane plantations in the 17th century, with many of the […]

They were all there! Rosie the Riveter, movie stars, socialites, dancers, military, and medical personnel in the USO Hollywood Canteen aka the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM). This was their annual fundraising gala stepping back in time to the 1940s. The evening’s honorees were Pierre Claeyssens Veterans Foundation and the Santa Barbara Navy League. Sounds […]

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 […]

It is difficult to decide whether to laugh or cry at a recent judge’s ruling denying the U.S. government’s right to use the census to count the number of U.S. citizens. Laughing because it is deceivers’ dream to have every action of this presidential administration – including masking the difference between citizens and illegals – […]

Santa Barbara Maritime Museum kicked off its 20th anniversary year with a boffo bash at its depository on South Salinas Street when the Kieding Collections Chandlery was named in honor of Bob Kieding, 82, one of the founders and a premier sailboat racer. As part of the celebrations, the popular museum, which is located next […]

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 […]

At a recent California State Senate hearing on how to help those adversely impacted by post-disaster emergencies and in need of temporary housing, representative Monique Limon called AB1919 to the attention of the Montecito audience. The #1 listed pending bill on the handout was this: “This bill prohibits price gouging of rental housing that was […]

There were decidedly fishy goings-on at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum when the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County hosted a mariculture event to emphasize the importance of seafood in the world’s food chain. The nonprofit, which distributes 10 million pounds of food annually, invited three local culinary wizards to show off their wares: TV show […]

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 […]

Ocean photographer Bob Evans was definitely making a splash when his debut exhibition Marine Megatropolis featuring 26 colorful images opened at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. Bob, who was a deep-sea diver off our city’s offshore oil platforms, logging 850 dives between 1974 and 1981 taking thousands of slides and 7,000 feet of film footage, […]