Santa Catalina Island, Avalon to White's Landing

Greetings from the ocean...

Our two nights in Avalon were filled with eating out, small hikes, and a little snorkeling around the casino waters. We played around in the dive area directly in front of the casino. Lots of fish, but there was a swell running and the viz was not the best.

We also had a visit from our friend Alicia who lives in L.A. She came out on Friday evening on the Catalina Express out of Long Beach and stayed overnight. Played some music and enjoyed the "scene" at Avalon.

The next day we decided that though Avalon is beautiful and fun we wanted to move on to a quieter anchorage and explore more of the island. We dropped our mooring lines and headed a few miles up the coast to Whites Landing and picked up a mooring there. Whites landing is a very pretty spot, with a nice white sand beach, and a newer pier and dinghy dock. Clear water and great swimming too.
There is a YMCA camp on the beach and we spent some quality time watching the kids get tumbled in the surf before going ashore to do some exploring. There were also a couple of yacht club cruise-in facilities on the beach. Members only, but nobody around and apparently not strictly enforced.

We got quite a big surprise when we noticed another boat named Kama Hele moored right across from us. We dinghied over to say hello but they didn't seem too interested in chatting.

Later in the afternoon we took the dinghy and motored the 4 miles back to Avalon to drop Alicia off at the ferry. We were sad to see her go but it was great to catch-up with her. She definitely seemed to enjoy her weekend of living the cruising lifestyle. While ashore we got our ice cream fix and then headed back to Whites Landing. As we were settling into a relaxing evening suddenly large cannon fire was sounded. Than a lot of the boats in the anchorage started blasting their horns. Turns out there was a party at one of the yacht clubs and things were just getting going. Luckily we weren't too close and it didn't disturb our serene evening. The next day, the kids went home on a small chartered ferry and we had the cove to ourselves.

The weather has been beautiful. Clear all day and all night with daytime temps in the upper 70s to low 80s and water temps in the low 70s. About as perfect as you can get, with no change in the forecast anytime soon.

We're now headed out to the quieter West end for our last couple of nights on Catalina before making our way back North.