We recently discovered a great place for breakfast in Laguna Beach.
Urth Cafe -- not a typo.
Easily walkable from shuttle drop off.
Depending on age of children (or child-likeness of adults)
Take the boat ferry from Balboa Island to Newport Beach.
If you are a shopper, the San Clements Outlets are very nice.
(I don't usually like outlet malls -- but needed a warmer jacket and found one at Columbia store there. It was Christmas time.
Enjoy the ferry while you can:
BY LILLY NGUYENSTAFF WRITER
MARCH 22, 2023 5 PM PT
The Balboa Island Ferry has operated in Newport Beach since 1919, but a new mandate handed down by the California Air Resources Board has placed its future, for the first time in little over a century of operation, up in the air.
In December, the state board, which aims to attain and maintain air quality, implemented new regulations that require commercial harbor craft — defined as crew and supply boats, fishing vessels, ferries, excursion vessels and the like — to start using renewable diesel fuel this year and begin the process of replacing their engines to reduce emissions and health risks from ports and the movement of goods up and down the state.
Short-run ferries, like the Balboa Island Ferry, are required to use zero-emission engines by the end of 2025.
It’s an admirable intent but one that’s easier said than done, according to Seymour Beek, who operates the ferry business, while his son, David, runs the Balboa Island Fuel Dock, which started operations in 1936.
The elder Beek said they’ve been aware of the possibility they would need to convert the engines of their three boats for at least two years, though it wasn’t official until the California Air Resources Board accepted the recommendations of its staff last year. With a ticking deadline now a little under two years to retrofit and replace, Beek said the cost to convert is astronomical.
“We just can’t afford it,” he said. “It’s $2.5 million to convert the first boat — to do the engineering and design — if it can even be done. The feasibility of it has yet to be proved. We’re not sure we can do it because of our cramped space and so on. Everybody talks about the funding that’s available, but we haven’t found it yet.”
Beek said the business has retained a consultant to help search for ways to fund the conversion, but they haven’t had much luck so far.
“We’re a business that, for the first time, exceeded $2 million in 2022. We don’t make a profit. Some years, we don’t make any profit. Expecting us to spend $2.5 million on the first boat and each boat after, $1 million, plus putting in the battery charging stations on shore ... is probably another half a million,” he continued. “It’s just out of our ballpark. We can’t do it. If something doesn’t give, we’re out of business.”
That’s bad news, not just for the Beeks or their staff of 40 or so employees but for the residents and tourists that come for the ferry, said Visit Newport Beach’s president and chief executive officer Gary Sherwin in a recent call.