catalina island

Our good friend Casey, from the great state of Ohio - motto: We have more syllables per letter than any other state! (shut up, Iowa) - took a transportation smorgasbord to meet up with us on Catalina Island. A two plus hour drive led to a four hour flight then a forty-five minute walk to get on a bus to catch a train to catch another train to catch a ferry to walk to the dinghy dock where we dinghied back to Hello World. The only transportation option we figured she didn't avail herself of was a burro.

We stayed the evening in Avalon Harbor, home to the world's most expensive mooring balls. $38/night to tie up to a mooring ball! We didn't even get a continental breakfast for that price.

After hanging out in Avalon for a day, we cast off from our golden mooring ball and headed north for Two Harbors. In order to check sailing off Casey's adventure list, we hoisted the sails. And per usual, the wind died and we crept north at 0.6 knots. So we fired up the engine, looking forward to anchoring in Isthmus Cove and getting into the water.

Looking at the chart for Isthmus Cove, there's a few great little anchorages with reasonable protection and room for boats. Except. They are all carpet bombed with frickin' mooring balls. These mooring balls were only slightly less offensive at $28/night. Go to Catalina - it's great. But don't bring an anchor, bring an AmEx.

After getting tied up to another mooring ball, we shut the engine off and flung ourselves into the water. The three of us spent a heavenly afternoon skinny-dipping in the sunshine, floating on life jackets and passing around a Nalgene bottle of rum and juice. I've had better days in my life but I'm hard-pressed to name them at the moment.

The following day brought fog, some lower temperatures and dozens upon dozens more boats. This all made bobbing around in the water more difficult, so we jumped in the water, swam out, climbed up, jumped in the water, swam out, climbed out... You get the picture. Christy and Casey went snorkeling (we only have two sets of snorkel gear right now, gotta work on that). We also took in some shore life, crashing a party the Latitudes and Attitudes folks were throwing on the beach in Two Harbors.

A bone crushing headache caught up with Casey on her last day there so we spent most of that day getting her the right pain meds and letting her sleep. We ran her down to Avalon that afternoon and dropped her off the ferry and left for an overnight run down to San Diego that night.


The casino in Avalon.


Hanging out in Avalon Harbor on a honking expensive ($38!) mooring ball.


After moving north to Isthmus Cove, the first order of business was getting in the water.


Skinny dipping with some rum and juice.


Casey gettin' her snorkel on.


Casey doing a back dive.


Jason lining up for the huck.


And... there it is.


Casey perfecting the huck.


Try as she might, Christy could never quite let go of her college dive team training and embrace the huck. Every attempt resulted in a nice neat dive.


Hello World in the fog.


On our "hike" over to Catalina Harbor from Isthmus Cove.


Casey, a thousand thank you's for making the planes/tranes/automobiles trek out to Catalina. We loved having you on board and can't wait for you to come back!


The huck-cam.

The rest of the photos are here. It's one of our more hilarious galleries to date.

33°26.914'N 118°29.930'W