Avalon

Well we finally made it to Catalina Island this weekend. Thanks to a confluence of a few unhappy events, it had been a long, long time since I was there on Merrymaid. But bad times don't last and we got on with things, like sailing. We went to Oil Island White and anchored Friday evening and did basically, nothing. Saturday morning we were up at first light, hoisted the Japanese spinnaker, weighed anchor and were off on a course of 180 to Long Point. The Japanese spinnaker, in case you don't speak sailor, is the Yanmar diesel engine. A real little beauty. It's relatively small, 3 cylinders, and light. It sips fuel and is environmentally compliant even in pinko areas like Sweden and France. It is less than a year old and only has 55, or so, hours on it so far. It starts as quickly as a Chevy six and is a real joy after it's Ferryman and Volvo predecessors. Anyway, we motored all the way to Long Point and did a little coastal cruise up to Avalon. We tried to get a mooring in either Descanso Bay or Hamilton Cove but being it was a Saturday morning in late July, of course that was out of the question. So we anchored in 110 ft. of water between Descanso and Hamilton. We got to visit with our friends George and Melinda who are working in Avalon and living on a mooring and have decided to live there year round. We had a nice dinner at the Lobster Trap a new place, to me at least, in Avalon and took a stroll around town. Melinda is currently driving a tour bus around the island and when someone would point out some house, building or other point of interest, she would go into tour guide mode and spout out the pertinent facts. It was a lot of fun. Being we were anchored out, I was antsy about being ashore so we went back to the boat a bit early, and bounce about most of the night every time a shoreboat would pass by. Carl and his friend Freda were supposed to take the cattleboat from Long Beach over to Avalon for the sail back, but we got a text message that they were whimping out. Too bad for them. The sail back was a Nantucket sleigh ride. Lots of good reaching wind, lots of sun. We had a blast.

We're planning on going back Thursday morning and staying until Sunday. The plan, such as it is, is for G&M to return with us.