Catalina Island - alias Shangrilah
Friday – October 17th
And this is all beginning to make sense. The last couple of days have been incredible.
We arrived just after a spectacular sunrise yesterday in Emerald Bay on Catalina Island, so named because – yes the water is emerald and incredibly clear. The bay has about 50 mooring buoys, which we did actually attempt to tie to, but when we came up close noticed that all of the rings to tie to seemed to have been removed – we thought probably because this is the off-season. Fairly close to each buoy are rods sticking out of the water – we didn’t understand what these were for either so we came back out a little way and anchored beside Bird Rock –also aptly named. It took us about an hour to get out the diving equipment – tanks in aft lazarette, weight belts in bilge and dive bags in forward cabin under all of the ‘rubble’ that Johnny has to sleep beside.
Johnny couldn’t wait for us to gear up so he jumped in right away and announced it fantastic but a little cold. So we put on our full gear; Tony had to remind me of how some of these things go together, and as usual I huffed and puffed, complained like hell about the general discomfort, while Tony gets on with helping me and gearing up himself.
And then – it all became clear, as soon as we descended down the anchor line and I got myself together, Tony pointed behind me – it was like those magic pictures that are made up of millions of tiny repetitive shapes that you stare at with squinted eyes for a while and then the image jumps out at you. We were swimming in a wonderland about 30 – 40 feet deep with a visibility of about 60 feet – among long ribbon shaped shoals of sardines, beautifully colored fish I do not know the names of, got up close to a leopard shark – a spotted dogfish – swam through kelp forests. The experience was totally worth taking my padi course in February in Sidney and sailing approximately 1500 miles south for. I was so happy while I was underwater I could have cried. The rest of the day we spent snorkeling together, lying in the sun and complementing ourselves on our good fortune.
On Tuesday 14th we left Port San Luis at 1500 hrs – even though we have found that the waves are quite a bit bigger in the afternoon, we were also intent on arriving at Point Conception (in my mind another Cape Mendecino) sometime in the middle of the night when it is supposedly least horrible. As we were heading for Catalina Island we would not be coming in close to the point and as it was we had a pretty uneventful night – sometimes a rollicking sail in manageable seas and sometimes motoring.
The sky was totally clear with a full moon. This is our 3rd full moon since leaving Canada, but the first unobstructed moon. (On the night we sailed from Monterey to Port San Luis I saw the moon set at about 0600 hrs, an incredible orange ball sinking into the west – photos didn’t work I’m afraid - then an hour later a spectacular sunrise in the east. I love the dawn watch)
Wednesday we were motoring all day – the highlight of which was when we were visited by a pod of Pacific White Side dolphins. There were hundreds of them around us and they were coming in smaller groups to bow ride our bow wave. They stayed with us about an hour and because of individual markings we could recognize them when they came back for another turn. They seem to have a lot of scars on their backs – probably caused by doing exactly this. Johnny got up in the pulpit and took lots of video – see webshots. Later in the afternoon we spotted what our resident marine biologist thinks are ‘false killer whales’. They are grey and white, have tall sickle shaped dorsal fins and are a bit smaller than killer whales.
That evening we decided to have a barbeque as we weren’t in a particular hurry – we didn’t want to arrive at Catalina in the dark, so we cut the engine, Johnny went for a swim, Tony fired up the barby and we had a lovely meal in our own little world and life felt really good.
The night passed without a watch contributed by me, so I’ll just quote the log:
Tony – 2300 – beautiful slick ride, moon and stars shining, cirrus cloud whisping, crew sleeping. Johnny 0100 – Tony is a poet and he didn’t know it. Mine will be simpler – ditto. Tony again 0500 – getting closer to Catalina – very mild and humid, still motoring.I know that we have a long way to go and then to keep going - but being in Emerald Bay at Catalina feels like we’ve arrived at the beginning.
And this is all beginning to make sense. The last couple of days have been incredible.
We arrived just after a spectacular sunrise yesterday in Emerald Bay on Catalina Island, so named because – yes the water is emerald and incredibly clear. The bay has about 50 mooring buoys, which we did actually attempt to tie to, but when we came up close noticed that all of the rings to tie to seemed to have been removed – we thought probably because this is the off-season. Fairly close to each buoy are rods sticking out of the water – we didn’t understand what these were for either so we came back out a little way and anchored beside Bird Rock –also aptly named. It took us about an hour to get out the diving equipment – tanks in aft lazarette, weight belts in bilge and dive bags in forward cabin under all of the ‘rubble’ that Johnny has to sleep beside.
Johnny couldn’t wait for us to gear up so he jumped in right away and announced it fantastic but a little cold. So we put on our full gear; Tony had to remind me of how some of these things go together, and as usual I huffed and puffed, complained like hell about the general discomfort, while Tony gets on with helping me and gearing up himself.
And then – it all became clear, as soon as we descended down the anchor line and I got myself together, Tony pointed behind me – it was like those magic pictures that are made up of millions of tiny repetitive shapes that you stare at with squinted eyes for a while and then the image jumps out at you. We were swimming in a wonderland about 30 – 40 feet deep with a visibility of about 60 feet – among long ribbon shaped shoals of sardines, beautifully colored fish I do not know the names of, got up close to a leopard shark – a spotted dogfish – swam through kelp forests. The experience was totally worth taking my padi course in February in Sidney and sailing approximately 1500 miles south for. I was so happy while I was underwater I could have cried. The rest of the day we spent snorkeling together, lying in the sun and complementing ourselves on our good fortune.
On Tuesday 14th we left Port San Luis at 1500 hrs – even though we have found that the waves are quite a bit bigger in the afternoon, we were also intent on arriving at Point Conception (in my mind another Cape Mendecino) sometime in the middle of the night when it is supposedly least horrible. As we were heading for Catalina Island we would not be coming in close to the point and as it was we had a pretty uneventful night – sometimes a rollicking sail in manageable seas and sometimes motoring.
The sky was totally clear with a full moon. This is our 3rd full moon since leaving Canada, but the first unobstructed moon. (On the night we sailed from Monterey to Port San Luis I saw the moon set at about 0600 hrs, an incredible orange ball sinking into the west – photos didn’t work I’m afraid - then an hour later a spectacular sunrise in the east. I love the dawn watch)
Wednesday we were motoring all day – the highlight of which was when we were visited by a pod of Pacific White Side dolphins. There were hundreds of them around us and they were coming in smaller groups to bow ride our bow wave. They stayed with us about an hour and because of individual markings we could recognize them when they came back for another turn. They seem to have a lot of scars on their backs – probably caused by doing exactly this. Johnny got up in the pulpit and took lots of video – see webshots. Later in the afternoon we spotted what our resident marine biologist thinks are ‘false killer whales’. They are grey and white, have tall sickle shaped dorsal fins and are a bit smaller than killer whales.
That evening we decided to have a barbeque as we weren’t in a particular hurry – we didn’t want to arrive at Catalina in the dark, so we cut the engine, Johnny went for a swim, Tony fired up the barby and we had a lovely meal in our own little world and life felt really good.
The night passed without a watch contributed by me, so I’ll just quote the log:
Tony – 2300 – beautiful slick ride, moon and stars shining, cirrus cloud whisping, crew sleeping. Johnny 0100 – Tony is a poet and he didn’t know it. Mine will be simpler – ditto. Tony again 0500 – getting closer to Catalina – very mild and humid, still motoring.I know that we have a long way to go and then to keep going - but being in Emerald Bay at Catalina feels like we’ve arrived at the beginning.
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