Some say there are signs that the world’s global recession is bottoming out but even if it is, the economic fallout is likely to continue for some time.
You can usually diagnose a country’s financial health by visiting one of its stopover ports. But if that visit is cancelled at short notice, it can spell disaster.
Fortunately, for the cruise industry, one stopover port’s loss can be another port’s gain. As Santa Barbara found out when around 2,600 passengers on two of Princess’s cruise ships recently made an unexpected but welcome visit, after plans to visit Mexico were ditched due to the threat of swine flu.
Local studies in Santa Barbara show that cruise ship passengers spend an average of $200 per couple during a single port call. That’s a lot of money to blow on retail therapy and the city rose to the occasion.
An upmarket utopia with lots of nice shops just 92 miles north of the notoriously congested Los Angeles, Santa Barbara is one of California’s most attractive coastal cities, and is delightfully located between a range of mountains and the Pacific ocean.
Before the arrival of Princess’s vessels, just nine cruise ships had visited the city since 2002.
I can’t imagine why more cruise ships haven’t docked at Santa Barbara for flowers bloom there all year-round – the average temperature during the summer ranges from 56 to 72 degrees and residents enjoy over 275 sunny days per year. The greater Santa Barbara area has museums, art galleries, lots of sports facilities and about 15 beaches. Whale-watching is a favorite pastime.
A very relaxed Spanish-influenced city of 90,000 residents, Santa Barbara has 400 eateries which reflects the tastes of its diverse population. It also boasts an abundance of celebrity residents including, at one time or another, Michael Douglas, Kevin Costner, Steve Martin, Steven Seagal, John Cleese, Jackson Browne, Whoopi Goldberg and the late Ronald Reagan.
Santa Barbara is a place I’d like to return to for when I was 22, single, and touring America as a drama student I met a beautiful girl there and we fell in love. She then followed my drama school’s tour to L.A. Unfortunately, neither of us had much money at the time and I had to return to England. C’est la vie.
Shortly afterwards I wrote this poem which, if you ever visit Santa Barbara (or any other port) and meet the person of your dreams and then lose them, you may find comforting:
you followed me
down
all the way
between the Pacific
the blue mountains
to L.A.
you were fine
too good
and gave time
to others
who needed it
when I was
jealous
I resented
of all that
time
it was only
later
I realised
we shared it
Perhaps you can now understand why Santa Barbara 
is a place I’ve dreamed of most of my life. Not that I regret what I’ve achieved since, or the son and daughter I went on to father, or eventually meeting the wonderful woman who became my second and final wife.
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6 Comments
Jun 12 2009
9:38
I so enjoy reading your blog every Friday and this one in particular! Very touching.
Jun 12 2009
9:50
in April 1970 I was a member of the Mountview Theatre School company touring America coast-to-coast for almost two months – we were the first British drama school to do so and our repoirtoire included Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade, Edward Bond’s Saved, and Brecht’s Mother Courage. I met this beautiful young woman, whose name was Sharon, a few minutes after we arrived at the University of Santa Barbara – in the campus cafeteria where we were waiting to be told where our lodgings were allocated. Sharon smiled at me, I asked her to join me in sharing an icecream sundae, and I ended up staying with her. She then followed the tour down to L.A. but because she was such a good person she was so busy helping everyone else she almost forgot about me. The last time I saw her was when we were both sitting in her car on an LA beach late a night, holding hands and looking at the ocean, while trying to come to terms that we couldn’t see each other again. She then handed me an inscribed copy of La\wrence Ferlinghetti’s poems, A Coney Island of the Mind, with a quote from Joni Mitchell’s song, ‘Willy’, which started:
“…But you know how it’s hard to tell when you’re in the spell if it’s wrong or if it’s real but you’re bound to lose if you let the blues get you too scared to feel…”
We weren’t too scared to feel, we were just too scared to let go.
Jun 12 2009
9:53
I have to wondour just how you manage to make, what ordinarilly would be mundain drivel, into inellectual, uplifting, humourous and enjoyable reading matter. Forgive the spelling James. Another goodie. Well done!
Jun 12 2009
10:50
We are staying in Santa Barbara for two days in August – your description of it has made me wish we could stay there longer.
Jun 12 2009
12:08
I used to know a girl called Barbara. She never ate spinach.
Jun 22 2009
7:54
I also have fond memories of Santa Barbara. A hundred years ago, I spent five weeks there– finished one play, got into another and wrote one of my better poems about a hummingbird’s flight which I later used in a play BIRDS OF AMERICA about bird watchers and the birds they watch and their partners who don’t watch birds.