Tag archives: SBMM

In keeping with the celebration of March 2024 as Women’s History Month (spoiler alert!) this column is going to contain some seriously shameless bragging! At the close of this month I’d like to send the memo that, both in a professional capacity and as volunteers, every month of any year Santa Barbara women make huge […]

There is something very exciting happening at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum! Of course, there are always exciting things going on at SBMM, however this is something very special to be enjoyed (and loved!) by the entire family. Having opened on Wednesday, February 8th, the Maritime Museum’s new exhibit, ICE BEAR, puts on display a […]

Hello Santa Barbara! There’s a new charity in town. Organizations devoted to charitable endeavors are the beating heart of our generous community, but this foundation brings something very special into the mix. Officially designated as the Central Coast Ocean Adventure Foundation (CCOAF) its main venue is a 110-foot-tall ship called the Mystic Whaler, areplica of […]

“Whales are Superheroes” according to the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM). The museum invited all artists in grades K-6 to submit ocean-related art for a unique exhibit. The artists gave their interpretation of a whale, a whale’s activities, or anything ocean related like kelp, starfish, dolphins, or other sea creatures. Crayons, colored pencils, or markers […]

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 […]

Santa Barbara Maritime Museum celebrates a milestone and sails into the future Back in 1994, a small group of divers, fishermen, and sailors began meeting at the Santa Barbara Yacht Club and the Breakwater Restaurant to start planning a museum that would “present and interpret the rich and diverse maritime history of the Santa Barbara […]

From the olden days fast forward to the current days for the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM). I remember when it first began and now is the 20th anniversary. With the pandemic, the Hawaiian themed party had to be cancelled. Instead supporters browsed and bid on online auction items to support SBMM children’s education program, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]