by Debbie L. Sklar / Times of San Diego / Feb. 13, 2026
For centuries, the waters off Point Loma have been both a gateway and a hazard. Guarding the entrance to San Diego Bay, the peninsula’s rocky shoreline, strong currents, and frequent fog made it one of Southern California’s most treacherous stretches of coast. Long before visitors hiked the bluffs, ships ran aground, illicit cargo moved ashore, and maritime stories took root — shaping local lore that still echoes today.
Navigation into the bay was especially tricky in the 19th century. Fog often concealed the narrow channel, and early nautical charts were incomplete. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse, first lit in 1855, was intended to guide ships safely to harbor. Instead, its high perch often placed the light above the fog, making it invisible to sailors below. Mariners complained, and shipping records indicate that vessels continued to run aground. In 1891, the lighthouse was abandoned and replaced by a new light positioned closer to the water.
Shipwrecks along the Point Loma coast were not uncommon. Many vessels were damaged rather than destroyed, but contemporary newspaper accounts describe ships stranded on shoals, cargo lost overboard, and crews rescued under dangerous conditions. These incidents reinforced the area’s reputation as a hazardous passage — a reputation that lingered even as navigation tools and harbor improvements advanced.
In the early 20th century, Point Loma’s secluded coves made it part of a broader rum-running network during Prohibition. Smugglers anchored offshore and ferried alcohol to shore under the cover of darkness. While the peninsula was not the region’s only landing point, its geography made it well-suited for covert operations. Over time, reports of mysterious lights offshore and late-night boat activity blended into local memory, forming the basis for folklore about secret cargo and restless spirits.
One b/w film negative. View of a man and woman in horse drawn buggy on the road passing the US Upper Lighthouse at Point Loma in the 1910s. Two automobiles are parked further up the road. US Upper Lighthouse has also been called Old Spanish Lighthouse erroneously, as it was built in the American Period in the 1850s. (Photo courtesy of San Diego History Center)
By the silent film era, stories of maritime danger and smuggling were already familiar to the public. Filmmakers often drew inspiration from shipwrecks, fog-bound coastlines, and Prohibition-era crime when crafting sea dramas. Point Loma itself was rarely used as a filming location, but the types of stories inspired by its shoreline — hidden cargo, narrow escapes, and perilous waters — were well established in popular imagination.
Today, the Old Point Loma Lighthouse stands preserved within Cabrillo National Monument, offering sweeping views of the same waters that once challenged sailors and fueled legend. While ghost stories remain part of local folklore, the maritime risks that inspired them were very real — shaping San Diego’s long and complicated relationship with the sea.
Sources
The Journal of San Diego History — Prohibition and rum-running in Southern California
National Park Service, Cabrillo National Monument — Old Point Loma Lighthouse history
U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office — Point Loma Lighthouse
San Diego History Center — San Diego maritime and coastal history
NOAA Office of Coast Survey — Historical coastal charts and navigation records
I don’t know what it is about mysteries of the sea, but I suppose our San Diego shoreline always seems beyond the reach of laws and the fog of mysteries doings. When I was a boy living in the Sunset Cliffs community of the 1950s, a mysterious large wooden boat washed up on the rocks West of Hill Street. Stripped of cargo and personal effects, this large wooden craft with empty windows of the bridge became the target for dozens of boys like myself to climb down the cliffs, swim and stumbler over the rocks to climb up and over the rails and explore the mysteries. In a short few years, the entire ship decayed in the pounding Winter surf and was gone. But sea mysteries remained embedded in my mind through the rest of my life.
As an adult, I managed to wheedle my way with the United States Navy and convince a commanding officer to support my application for a permit to search for a lost Spanish Army cannon fort buried at the foot of Rosecrans Street…and we found it the Summer of 1981. While researching the backstory of the 19th century fort, I found another sea mystery of the Smuggling boat “Lou,” which set up headquarters on Islas Coronado and made clandestine deliveries around the edges of Point Loma, only to end up mysteriously half sunk on the shore of North Island. Much as I tried to track down the “Case of U.S. District Court in 1893,” regarding the 1893 charge against Sam Smith, Captain of the Lou (represented by attorney J. Marion Brooks), finding the case was as elusive as all the sea mysteries of San Diego.
Ron, are you aware of the secret tunnel from the bottom of the cliffs through a cave that goes under the road and supposedly to one of the older houses across the street?