Santa Catalina Island, Rippers Cove and Isthmus

After Whites Landing, we headed over to Rippers Cove as we heard there was good snorkeling. A short cruise up the coast got us there and anchored and in the water shortly after lunch. We had a great snorkel around the cove and saw some beautiful fish and abalone shells.

As we were cocktailing on the back deck I noticed something brown on the hillside amongst all the green shrubs. It was a buffalo. Very cool to see one from your boat. Back in the 1920's they used to film movies on the island, and the movie studios brought a whole herd of them over to film a western but never brought them back and they've been roaming around every since.

We were planning on spending the night there but right around dusk as I was making dinner, the swell picked up and we started to rock. We had the flopper stoppers out however the swell was so strong they had a hard time keeping up. We made a quick decision to pull up anchor and head over to Two Harbors as it was only 30 minutes away. We pulled in right before dark and grabbed a mooring and proceeded to have a lovely albeit late dinner.

While making breakfast the next morning the harbor patrol boat pulled up and we met Tom and then Halle who both work for the harbor. They were both admiring our boat as they also live on a steel vessel and Halle likes cats so of course she had to meet Kona. Afterwards we headed over to the USC Marine Center cove to do a little snorkeling. The researchers there were just headed out for a dive and were super friendly, offering to let us use their dock to swim from. A friend told me there were usually Leopard Sharks there and though we didn't see any, we did see an amazing array of different fish. The highlight was snorkeling under the pier - it felt like you were in a fish tank.

Later in the day Pete tried his hand at fishing off the dinghy. He did catch quite a few small sand dabs and a sheepshead but did not keep anything for dinner. The wind started picking up and we were starting to get a little wet fishing off the dinghy so we headed back. Isthmus is across a small saddle of land (about half a mile) from our first Catalina anchorage (Cat Harbor) - that's why they call the area Two Harbors. The Isthmus side has a little beach resort area with a store, bar, and restaurant. All very low key.

We decided to go "into town" to have a last cocktail at the restaurant.
Someone told me to try the Buffalo Milk and it was tasty. After, as we knew this was our last time on land for awhile we took a stroll up the hill to get a nice view of the harbor. It was lovely. We were definitely sad to leave Catalina as the weather and water were beautiful and there was still so much to do. Will definitely be back.