Mission Bay

A man apparently distraught over the death early Saturday morning of his father at the Mission Bay Memorial Hospital returned with a handgun later in the day and sprayed the emergency room with bullets, police said, killing a nurse and a hospital trainee and wounding two others--a doctor and the father of a patient. The man identified by police as Bradford Warren Powers Jr., 46, of La Jolla, called police from a pay phone about an hour after the 5 p.m. shooting and turned himself in.

The last time I saw the Yukon, a 366-foot-long Canadian navy destroyer, it was docked in San Diego. So many holes had been cut in the sides of this well-worn vessel that it reminded me of a big hunk of Swiss cheese. That was a little more than a decade ago, and volunteer crews were gutting and cleaning the ship, preparing to scuttle it to create an artificial reef in 105 feet of water two miles off Mission Bay. Since then, I've wanted to visit the ship in its sandy resting spot, but the birth of two children and a move to Wisconsin got in the way. Now I was floating on the Humboldt dive boat, listening to captain Ryan Wilbarger as he briefed us about what we would find on the ship.

Nearly 25,000 gallons of sewage spilled Saturday into the Sail Bay area of Mission Bay, a county health services worker reported. About 10:15 a.m., pump station 17 lost power, causing sewage to back up and overflow in the 700 block of Pacific Beach Drive, the spokesman said. Power was restored by 1 p.m. Warning signs were posted 400 feet on each side of the spill. The county will test the water quality and remove the signs when it is safe for swimming and other water activities.

San Diego-area water regulators voted Wednesday to require pollution permits for fireworks displays over water, in what they said was the first such regulation in the nation. Operators of seaside fireworks shows from Laguna Beach to the U.S.-Mexico border will have to take steps to minimize the discharge of pollutants into the water and to clean up shells, cardboard, fuses and other debris under the new rules by the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board. The rules, which take effect next month, will largely affect displays along the coastline, but will also apply to fireworks over rivers, streams, reservoirs and lakes.

Mission Bay beat St. Augustine in a unusual nonleague game Saturday. It was not a normal respite from Buccaneers' and Saints' respective City Western and City Harbor League schedules, which tend to deplete pitching staffs and make teams weary in early May. Saturday's championship of the City Conference Tournament was an important game. When the rains came in April, this game was saved for a sunny day. And it was a title game worth saving . . . right down to the final at bat.

Fun comes in many forms at Mission Bay, San Diego's mega-marine playground: swimming, sailing, water-skiing and cycling. The walking is good, too. One option leads through marshland preserves--an ideal opportunity to watch waterfowl. Southern California beach culture--to the max--can be observed from Bayside Walk on Mission Bay's west side. Mission Bay City Park is said to be the largest aquatic park in the world. About 25% of the 4,600-acre park, including the famed Sea World, is commercial.

San Diego Fire Department investigators are checking into the cause of a $35,000 fire that destroyed a 30-foot cabin cruiser tied up at Sea World dock in Mission Bay. The fire broke out Thursday afternoon and quickly consumed the craft. Witnesses said the blaze apparently started in the engine compartment of the boat. The vessel was not part of the Sea World aquatic park fleet. It was owned by John Gabriel of San Diego.

San Diego police Thursday arrested a 17-year-old youth in connection with the shooting death two months ago of a 16-year-old girl at Mission Bay. Police said they arrested the suspect at 3:30 a.m. Thursday. He was being held at Juvenile Hall on suspicion of the Sept. 23 murder of Sovaney Onn of Long Beach. Onn was standing with a group of friends in the parking lot of Ski Beach at Mission Bay when a group drove up and fired into the crowd. Onn died from a gunshot to the head.

Heavy runoff from the week's rains forced San Diego County health authorities Wednesday to quarantine the northern half of Mission Bay after high bacterial counts were recorded near Sail Bay and Santa Barbara Cove. Ruth Covill, a spokeswoman for the county Department of Health Services, said the closure is unrelated to sewage spills off Point Loma and at the mouth of the Tijuana River, which have combined to close 20 miles of coastline from the border to Ocean Beach.

San Diego's top prep pitcher, left-hander John Hemmerly of Mission Bay High, has decided to stay home to play his college baseball and has signed a letter of intent to play at San Diego State. Hemmerly, who has been brilliant this season for the third-ranked Buccaneers, compiling a 7-0 record and allowing only one run in 40 innings of work, was among the most highly recruited pitchers on the West Coast.

The Hyatt Regency Mission Bay Spa & Marina in San Diego is offering a room discount for Halloween weekend that makes for a good treat. What’s the trick? Hmm, I haven’t figured that out yet. The deal: The Halloween Spooktacular special offers a $149 rate on Friday and Saturday and $74.50 on Sunday for a standard room; prices don’t include tax. Suites start at $199 on Friday and Saturday and $99.50 on Sunday. You must stay two nights to get the deal.

Greater San Diego has been fertile recruiting ground for USC, producing Heisman Trophy-winning running backs Marcus Allen and Reggie Bush . Now comes freshman Dillon Baxter . It's too soon, of course, to know how Baxter's Trojans career will play out. But the early enrollee put on a show during USC's scrimmage on Saturday, scoring on a spectacular 50-yard run that left several defensive players on the ground grasping helplessly...

Budget travelers, if you avoid looking for hotels on the beach because you think you can't afford them, think again. Hotwire Travel-Ticker has the skinny on a San Diego beachfront deal that's hard to pass up -- especially if you have kids. The deal: The Catamaran Resort Hotel & Spa, right on Mission Bay and only 3 1/2 miles from Sea World, has rooms starting at $129 a night. This special is good every day of the week for the rest of the year. A spa and water sports rental facility are on site.

Here in San Diego's Mission Bay -- a nearly 7-square-mile playground of amusement parks, beaches, marinas, restaurants, hotels and souvenir shops -- the words on the lips of merchants and hotel owners are "Fourth of July weekend." And it's not the annual fireworks displays they are talking about. It's the tourists -- or lack of them so far this summer. All fingers are crossed that the upcoming holiday weekend will kick-start the summer tourism season.

Federal agents seized about 640 pounds of marijuana Saturday afternoon on a private shipping boat four nautical miles west of San Diego's Mission Bay, officials said. Two U.S. citizens onboard, both men in their 20s, were arrested on suspicion of smuggling, but their identities were not immediately released. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted the 27-foot-long boat, which appeared to be coming from Mexico with the drugs, said Vince Bond, a spokesman for the agency.

BACK in my day (when we trudged 10 miles to school in 30 feet of snow), camping meant a smelly tent in an Ozark thicket where "I'm bored" got you a kick in the pants and the trip ended with removing fat ticks from places that made an 11-year-old blush. Camping at San Diego's Campland on the Bay would have been unthinkable -- and so totally awesome. This commercial campground is a tween scream -- and arguably the best $40 summertime stay on Mission Bay.

Mission Bay's Big D--its county-leading defense and proudest accomplishment this season--ran head on into a Big D of another kind Friday night at Mesa College. Kearny's Darnay Scott, a transfer student from St. Louis, had four catches for 55 yards and two touchdowns, one on a 92-yard kickoff return, to help silence Mission Bay, 30-10, in a pivotal City Western League football game. "There's no substitute for speed," said Mission Bay Coach Dennis Pugh. "And he (Scott) obviously has it."

A jury returned a second-degree murder conviction against a 20-year-old San Diego man Monday in the gang-related slaying of a Long Beach girl. Soulath Baythavong also was convicted of conspiring with five others in the shooting death of 16-year-old Sovaney Onn at the Ski Beach area of Mission Bay. The victim was shot in the head during a Sept. 23, 1990, confrontation between Laotian and Cambodian gang members, according to testimony during the trial.

Editor's note: In last week's Outdoors, Sue Horton wrote about identifying 179 bird species during a one-day outing on May 1. On the same day, Todd and David Easterla, Steve Glover, Gjon Hazard and John Sterling set a Big Day record in San Diego County with 217. Here's an excerpt from their online report. We left the Silver Strand with 212 species, and added only Clapper Rail at Mission Bay (no brant, harlequin duck or little blue herons -- it was high tide). With 213, we had our last daylight at La Jolla where black-vented shearwaters and northern phalaropes flew offshore.

Beer kegs would be banned from San Diego beaches and Mission Bay Park under a measure unanimously approved by a City Council committee. Violators could be fined as much as $250 per keg or alcohol container of more than 3 gallons under the ban, Deputy City Atty. Simon Silva said. More than a dozen people said the ban is needed to prevent situations like a near-riot that occurred in a Pacific Beach neighborhood last July 4.