The Annual Big Bay Boom July 4 2012 San Diego Fireworks Show in Downtown San Diego is the largest fireworks display in the San Diego area. The event starts at 9 p.m. on Saturday, July 4. Four barges, strategically placed around the north bay area of San Diego Bay, will discharge fireworks simultaneously. More than 750,000 people are expected to come to the waterfront to watch the show.
San Diego Bay is a natural harbor and deepwater port adjacent to San Diego, California. It is 12 mi/19 km long, 1 mi/1.6 km–3 mi/4.8 km wide. The bay is surrounded by the large San Diego urban area and is bordered by the cities of San Diego, National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Coronado. Considered to be one of the best natural harbors on the western coasts of the North American continent, San Diego Bay was among the earliest portions of those coasts to be settled by Europeans; it was colonized by Spain beginning in 1769. Later it served, and continues to serve to this day, as the home of the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet.
The western border of the bay is protected from the Pacific Ocean by a long, narrow strip of land called the Silver Strand. The northern end of the Silver Strand expands to become North Island, the location of Naval Air Station North Island (the home port of several aircraft carriers including the USS Ronald Reagan) and Coronado. Coronado is the site of the famous Hotel del Coronado. The U.S. Navy has three other facilities on the bay: Naval Station San Diego, Naval Base Point Loma at Ballast Point, which is a Nuclear Submarine base, and Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. The Coast Guard Air Station San Diego is across the bay from NAS North Island and the Federal Communications Commission maintains a monitoring station on the Silver Strand. Several other Navy facilities are located in the surrounding area, and even more existed previously but have since been closed. The U. S. Marine Corps also operates one of its two Recruit Depots near the shores of San Diego Bay.
The shallow southern end of the bay is used for evaporation ponds to extract salt from the sea water. The salt ponds, the Sweetwater Marsh, and other areas of the bay are included in the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The area includes the largest contiguous mud-flat in Southern California It is an important stop on the Pacific Flyway for migrating birds, and it supports numerous endangered and threatened species of plants and animals. Public access to the bay and wetlands, with walking trails and educational exhibits about the area's ecological resources, is provided at the Chula Vista Nature Center operated by the city of Chula Vista.
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