Paul and Jan's Most Excellent Adventures: Part 2: Catalina Island

As you recall from the previous post, I had succumbed to a bout of seasickness that caused me to sleep the entire first night and through both of my 3-hour watch shifts as we motored aboard Pink Cloud. Oxnard to Catalina Island is 66 nm.

Paul stayed up all night with Pink on autopilot, and at 2:00am a huge 800-foot freighter appeared behind us, and although Paul was well clear of the designated shipping lane, the freighter cut the shipping lane short, angling in towards Long Beach. The moon didn't come out until 3:00am, so it was pure darkness. Even with the radar on, it was difficult to tell exactly where he was, and which way we should go to get out of the freighter's way. Paul said it was so big, it looked like a building and he turned 90 degrees to port and headed 90 degrees from his course to get clear. Finally the freighter's lights got further away as Paul got Pink out of harm's way, but was not pleased by the freighter captain's lack of regard for safety.

Thank you, Hunnie!

As we neared Catalina Island, Paul woke me up, with a nice cup of coffee in hand, and we arrived at Two Harbors (Isthmus Cove, as they call it) at sunrise. We came in to the right of Bird Rock, which is stained white with bird poop.

It was chilly and I was still pretty groggy from the Trans-Derm patch I'd put on the night before.

We entered the left side of Isthmus bay and found a place to drop anchor near a really cool cave.

It wasn't a long cave, but the water was so clear and cold and the rocks were perfectly smooth and round...I slipped and crashed.

View from our trusty Zodiac.

Pablo, the mighty explorer!

Enormous purple and white jellyfish...eek!

View from the cave, with Pink in the background lookin' good...

After the wind died down a bit, we went ashore in search of food and grog.

View from the beach.

The large rock "island" in the background is Bird Rock.

Thanks for the adventure, Hun!

Harbor Reef Restaurant...the BEST buffalo burgers ever!

Then we went exploring a bit, taking a 1/4 mile walk along a dirt road to the other side of the isthmus to Catalina Harbor.

We looked for the free-roaming buffalo, but didn't see any although we DID see large piles of poop.

When we returned to Pink, Paul decided that he didn't like the way the wind was blowing through the valley so we decided to move south, over to White's Landing, a recommended anchorage from people we met in Oxnard. We pulled up anchor and motor-sailed over there, and arrived just before sunset.

The buildings nestled in there is Balboa Yacht Club.

Then it was dinner time and we prepared our BBQ to grill up some marinated organic chicken and steak.

Chef Paul.

Everything tastes GREAT on the ocean.

We spent the night there...I thought it was a bit rolly, but Paul thought it was pretty nice. The next morning after breakfast we motored south to Avalon Bay. It was a nice journey, but some people we lovingly labeled as "douche bags" in a 40-foot sport fishing boat named "Misfits" went past us so fast, they created a 3-foot wake that knocked all our dishes off the shelf. Inconsiderate power boaters to say the least, and the harbor was crowded in anticipation of July 4th festivities.

After chatting with the harbor master, we slowly cruised over to the fuel dock and it was mayhem there. All went well, after an "almost" collision with a big power boat being dumb in trying to do a 3-point turn right in front of us (which almost resulted in our bow chain wiping out his uber-expensive Zodiac) but we got our fuel and proceeded to find our mooring ball outside the madness across from the condos.

Mooring ball set-up with attached fore and aft lines, and spring lines too.

Real surge-y there.

The famous Avalon Casino.

Harbor madness.

Get me outa here!

Classy.

After we got Pink secured, we called the water taxi on the radio and Otto came to pick us up to take us to shore...

Otto.

The taxi was rolling around, I was trying to not get sick.

Otto delivered us to the taxi dock, we hopped off and walked thru the craziness of Avalon, pre-July 4th:

How many dinghies can you cram onto one dock???

This would be a cool surf-mobile for Jan because its

"cute."

Beautiful tiled fountain.

Say "cheeeeeeeeese," Jan.

After a very unpleasant experience at the Catalina Island Yacht Club (they were a bunch of snotty, stuck up old farts...pardon my French) and the refreshing ourselves with a nice hot shower, we cruised to Eric's for some delicious fish tacos and cold beer (for Paul).

Eric's on the boardwalk.

Wave to the camera, Jan...

After eating and having our fill of over-crowding, boat traffic jams and snotty yachties, we pulled off our mooring lines at around 3:00pm and headed to Dana Point Harbor, 30 nm to the east.