Untitled Page

We left Santa Barbara on 3/9/08 enroute to Channel Islands Marina and then to Marina Del Rey. While we prefer to anchor out, each of these locations does not allow anchoring. At Channel Islands, we had our dinghy davits braced up a bit and completed a bit more work on the boat. Then off to Marina Del Rey on the 13th. We heard stories about the exorbinant costs to moor at Marina Del Rey, but one of the cruise books described reasonable moorage at the County docks. We wanted to visit there for a couple of reasons. First, just to do it... in that we wanted to see the a really big marina, and it was close to Venice Beach, where we wanted to people watch for an afternoon. The moorage was more than reasonable- like $9 per night. We met some really nice folks- Jan and Gayle on 'Joy of Life' and enjoyed some time exploring. Venice Beach was pretty tame as opposed to what we expected. I'm sure the calm weather had something to do with it- but it was interesting walking along the pathways. Other than that, we were moored in a City.

On 3/19, we headed '26 miles across the sea' to Catalina Island. Our plan was to visit Isthmus Cove (Twin Harbors) at the north end, then to Emerald Bay, and then to Catalina Harbor on the backside for a while. Finally we would end the trip to Catalina Island with a visit to Avalon. Isthmus Cove was fine- it gave us our first opportunity to mooring with their system of bow and stern lines. Others had described the mooring lines as "slime lines" in that they stay in the water (growing things) until picked up. Grabbing the moorage was easy, and we were duly 'slimed'. The harbor was only about 10% full, but one could imagine the place looking like a shopping center parking lot when full.

The next day we headed off to Emerald Bay, where we would anchor for the night. This was our first chance to set both a bow and stern anchor- which went reasonably well. Had a nice hike up the hill past the Boy Scout Camp- great views. That evening, I leaned to always secure the dinghy when taking Buddy for his evening 'romp on the beach'. Yep, it floated out into the bay a bit while we 'were gone for just a minute'. I thought I had it high enough on the beach. After a quick swim out to retrieve it, I decided that maybe it wasn't beached high enough.

Catalina Cove is beautiful. We spent 3 days there just relaxing at anchor- as well as hiking around the area. One evening, while Buddy was off leash on the walk, he discovered on of the wild buffalo. Buddy wanted to play, and ran up to the buffalo to encourage a game of 'catch me if you can'. Evidentially Mr. Buffalo was not in a mood to play, and started charging at Buddy.... who thought this was great fun. Cindy is losing her mind... yelling at Buddy. Then she says "I can't watch" envisioning that Buddy would get gorged or trampled. Steve's figuring that Buddy can out-maneuver that guy, and is more concerned about Buddy running back to us with the buffalo on his tail. Or getting us arrested for harassing the wildlife. We met another couple later in the evening, who evidentially witnessed the whole ordeal while having a glass of wine at an inn on top of a hill. Only they asked if we saw the two buffalo, and stating that the baby one was evidentially quite frisky. Nope, we didn't tell them.

From there, we went to Avalon for a couple of days. Definately a tourist destination. It was nice, but of all the places, Catalina Cove is our favorite.

When we left Avalon, we went to Dana Point Marina (expensive, but nice) for one night, then to Oceanside (moderately expensive and a bit of surge), and then to anchor at Mission Bay, which was quite nice. We would have stayed for a bit, but we really needed to get to San Diego to do laundry and reprovision.

At San Diego, we spent 10-days at the Police Docks- which are the public transient docks. We rented a car, which made getting parts, groceries, and doing other errands quite a bit easier. We finished the watermaker installation- which works great, and made 'better" water than from the San Diego tap. We had a new alternator delivered to Harvey Karten (Tayana Owners Group and SV Night Heron) so it would be in town when we arrived. It was great to meet with Harvey, and we also met Jan & Gayle from SV Joy of Life.

After 10 days and armed with a watermaker, new alternator, new batteries, clean laundry, and groceries... we headed off to Mexico.