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Main Street

Balboa Pavilion

Balboa Fun Zone

Balboa Bay Front

Balboa Pier

Balboa Beach West

Balboa Beach East

Balboa Wedge

Faces Of Balboa

15th Street Surf Shop
AgentMaryLou
Balboa Fun Zone
Balboa Island
Balboa Island Ferry
Balboa Pavilion
Balboa Saloon
Balboa Technology
Catalina Flyer
Cracktones
Davey's Locker
Easy Notary Service
EyeLandGirl
Free Newport
Go Newport Beach
Main Street Bistro
Marina Water Sports
Menagerie Entertainment
Mifflin Taffy
Mr. Balboa Barber Shop
Newport Beach
Lifeguards
NetiHotell
Newport Jet Sports
Newport Surf Shots
Pilates by the Sea
Renee West
Rotary Club of Newport Balboa
Sally Martin Realtor ∙
Shellback Yacht Cruises
The Spice Guy
Walk to the Beach
Wedding Boat 

In the late 1940's, Joe Beek started the Around the Island Ferry, which served the entire Balboa Island shoreline and adjacent areas. The original Around the Island Ferry was the converted 30 foot, 30 passenger yacht, "Where Away." In the mid 1950's, Evan Jones built a new 30 foot ferry at the J. A Beek building. Evan also built all three of the current Balboa Island Ferries, Admiral, Commodore, and Captain, at this same location. The "Where Away" was sold to a local government agency for use as a dignitary launch. Traveling on 30 minute runs, the Around the Island Ferry service was from morning to 10 p.m., and the fee was 25 cents. Dorothy Handy recalls, "It was a little launch that left from Balboa Island. And if you wanted to catch it, you stood on the dock and waved it down. It would pick you up and drop you off anywhere you wanted." Seymour Beek recalls that, as a youth, he stole (borrowed) the ferry after 10 p.m. for "Ferry Parties" in Newport Bay, Corona Del Mar, and at sea. To this day Seymour believes his father, Joe Beek, was never wise to the parties. The Around the Island Ferry was discontinued in the late 1950s.
 

My husband wanted me to relate that he grew up at 123 Grand Canal, moved there in late 48, lived across the canal from the Shaws. Until 2 years ago we were in contact with Richard Shaw. Virgil Parch used to do their Christmas cards. His dad, Harvey Mayer, kept the engine on the Michigan going. Oh, by the way, my husbands name is Mike Mayer. Mike, as a kid, took more than one trip to Avalon on the Lazy B. He was curious because the original Balboa Island Punting and Sculling group was just a small handful of people and he finds it hard to believe that any of the original members are still with us. What he is looking for is actually the original society logo that was hand painted on the little fly bridge of the Michigan and this was drawn and painted by Parch and Shaw. This was the one and only real deal. He's just trying to find something of that original logo. By the way, what ever happened to the Michigan?
Mike & Sue Mayer
postiemayer@seasurf.net

Hello Balboa Talers,
Just happened upon your web site this evening as I was searching for live web cams of the California coast. I cannot begin to tell you what memories your site evokes. Let me share but a few.
First of all...getting there was NOT 1/2 the fun, not 1/4, not even 1/100th of the fun of spending up to four weeks of summer "at the beach." I was between 11 and 14 those summers in the early 50's, when Dad would pile us into the 1950 Chevy station wagon in our Pasadena driveway and we'd take the agonizingly long and tortuously slow journey on two-lane roads through suburbs and orange groves and ranches to get to our friend's house on the canal (one year) or on the Little Island's East Bay Front (2 years).
Once there, however, it was heaven! No shoes... No shirt... we didn't care if we got service or not, we were FREE! From 6am to 10 pm every day, to roam the islands; to swim across the bay to hitch a ride to Corona Del Mar to ride the waves; to snorkel around the perimeter of the island looking for crabs among the rocks; to jump from the canal bridge at high tide; or to rig a dingy with a beach umbrella as a sail, rowing upwind under the bridge to the north end, and then "sailing" as the wind at our back pushed the little boat and it's umbrella "mains'l" at warp speed down the canal, to be rowed back upwind for another run.
Early Sunday mornings were especially important, as they provided my brothers and I with pocket money for the week. Starting shortly after daybreak, we'd cruise the streets looking for well-tended gardens with abundant flowers, then cut a few of them (without disturbing the beauty of the garden) to be put in our buckets of water and, after a full load was acquired, sold outside the open air market on Marine Avenue to passers-by, always wondering if perhaps we were selling them to the owners of those very gardens from whence tkhey came.
Some of the proceeds would be spent immediately across the street for soft ice cream at the Jolly Roger (oh God, please bring it back the way it was some day). Other times, we'd take our pennies and nickels and play the "crane machines" at the Pavilion fun zone, rarely coming up with one of the big prizes but often being rewarded with little rings or other kinds of cool stuff.
One summer late-afternoon we were at the Newport Beach side of the ferry landing when a gorgeous wooden Chris-Craft speedboat roared up to the adjacent dock. Out piled the Rat Pack: Sinatra, Young, Natalie Wood, the whole bunch of them. Immediately the lipsticks were broken out and Sinatra and Wood began signing peoples backs, arms, legs, wherever there was space to scrawl their signatures before they went into the arcade to play among themselves with all the fantastic machines. A truly memorable show of public adoration and superstar unwinding
Oh yes, and the ferries!! What would Balboa have been without the "around the island" ferries and the public docks!! Riding for hours thanks to kind and understanding pilots who at times let us handle the lines, taking in all the sun and the scenery and the pure enjoyment of being on the water. The public docks also provided a great location for catching great batches of long, slender, shiny-bright smelt using drop-lines or, if we were lucky, a rod and reel found in some trash can in one of the mysterious Balboa alleys.
The days and the streets were filled with the sounds and smells of summer then, so in contrast with present day visits: houses closed to contain the stilted artifically cooled air; the streets vacant as the double-income owners toil away at office jobs on the mainland; a few beach towels on the small sandy patches between the piers, but certainly not the neighborhood galas that densely populated the beaches of yore.
Even though I'm on the East Coast now, and we finally sold the family house in Pasadena this year, I have and will continue to visit California several times a year, to occasionally walk the streets of the Balboa islands, and to remember what it was like to be a child, at the glorious beach, for FOUR WHOLE WEEKS!!
Thanks for letting me visit.
Curt Mason
Summit Point, WV
cmasonwhf@aol.com