We shoved off out of our slip in Ventura on Monday June 6th at 5:45 am. The winds were calm and we were ready for our 67 nautical mile trip. We mostly motor sailed (aka sails up but still have the engine running) so we could make it to Cat Harbor before sundown. The trip was uneventful, which was good for confidence and we enjoyed lunch aboard and finally anchored at about 6pm.
The next day Trevor and I hung out on the boat and played around with the Iridum Go, our satellite phone, and all the apps to stay in touch with everyone (details on how to do that in a later post) and get weather while we are under way.
The next day, we updated our Garmin chartplotters and auto pilot that took a few phone calls to accomplish but we finally got it done and took the dignhy out for Happy Hour to celebrate. Cat Harbor is on the West side of Catalina Island and there is about 1/4 mile walk to the other side. The other side has a small grocery store, restaurant, dive center, shuttle to Avalon (town at the South side of the island), laundry facilities, post office, etc. The island has never been attached to the main land and the land is pretty barren. The fauna and flora are unique to the island brought over by winds, ocean currents, and birds. Obviously, nonnative species has been introduced through out the islands history of European influence and there are American bison that live there. In 1924, fourteen bison were brought to the island for the filming of the Western movie The Vanishing American, though the scenes with the bison did not make it into the final cut of the film. Due to cost overruns, the film company decided to leave the bison on the island instead of bringing them back to the mainland. Today the size of the Catalina Island bison herd is maintained at population of about 150 animals.
Our last night in Catalina Island, our generator started to “spit” fuel and oil. NOT GOOD! We had to run the engine without a load on it (also not good for the engine) to recharge the batteries until we could get to San Diego and take a deeper look. On Thursday June 9th, we headed out of Cat Harbor at 3:30pm for our first overnight sail headed for San Diego……
Fun facts about Catalina Island: http://www.catalinachamber.com/
I did not know about the bison. Cool info. Glad you are off and happy! Sad you had engine trouble.
Catalina is also great for Whale watching! Then again, for you guys, whales and the like are probably going to be pretty easy to find!