Day 534 & 535 Catalina Island

We left Marina del Rey on Friday morning for Catalina Island and the "Latitudes and Attitudes" Cruisers Weekend.  "Latitudes and Attitudes" is a sailing magazine that has recently changed their name to "Seafaring Magazine".  I guess they are trying to get a better readership.  It sounds better than "Latitudes and Attitudes".  Anyhow, they have these "Cruiser's Weekend" blasts all over the US with this one being close to our route so we decided to stop in along with some new friends--Jay and Terri on board Cadenza.  We'd met them when we pulled into Oxnard last Monday and quickly became friends.

We left Marina del Rey about 1000 after getting our fuel tanks filled again.  Another 131 gallons at $3.20/gallon for a quick $400+ dollars.  Try that with your car some time.  We think we are doing well getting just over 6 knots to the gallon or about 1 gallon per hour.  For our size boat, that really good mileage.

We'd traveled about 46 miles from Oxnard to Marina del Rey on Thursday and now had a final 33 miles to make it to Catalina Island.  As we left Marina del Rey, there was little wind and that that there was was coming from the South(of course) exactly where we needed to go--gee what a surprise.  There were several boats that headed out the same time we did and we monitored their conversations on our VHF radio.  Most were headed to the same place we were for the same party.  

We snacked as we went and the wind slowly built--still from the South until we were just a few miles from Catalina and then they shifted just enough that we could have raised the sails.  By then, it was too late to raise them and so we just motored in.  

Once you enter the harbor, you call the Harbor Master and get assigned a buoy to tie up to.  The harbor is so busy(over 200 buoys) that you have to tie up using a bow and stern line so that no boats swing while in the harbor.  They have it down to a fine science.  You motor in and grab a big rod that sticks out of a small float in the water.  That stick has a line attached that you pull up on and attach it to a cleat on the bow of your boat.  A second line is attached to the stick and it leads to the stern anchor.  You follow the line down the side of your deck to the stern of your boat and pull up the stern line from the stern anchor that was set a long time ago by the island folks and attach that line to a stern cleat and your all set.  Being our first time in the harbor, the Harbor Patrol lead us straight to our assigned buoys and gave us lessons on how to set the lines.   Once in(33 26.664N  118 29.833W), along with at least a 100 other boats, we were set.  Our friends--Jay and Terri were a few rows ahead of us in the harbor.  We are in row "F" while they are in row "D".  

Once settled in, we lowered Puff into the water and hooked on Dragon and took off for shore to pay for our buoy--$37.00 a night for a spot in the water.  We wandered around and had a great lunch at the local watering hole.  Bacon cheeseburgers with fries.  A treat for us.  We walked along the shore and on the sandy beach, had drinks with Jay and Terri and later went back to Zephyr late in the afternoon.

Throughout the evening and into the night, boats  kept arriving.  As I was getting ready for bed--2300, a boat pulled in and hooked up to the buoy right beside us.  More came in throughout the night.  A zoo in the harbor.  Those that got off off work in the afternoon, left LA about 1800 and got in 3 to 4 hours later.

Today dawned with a thick layer of dew on everything.  I had to dry off the dingy or we would have been soaked once we got on board for the trip to shore.  There was supposed to be a "swap meet"early this morning but no one showed up so we just sat and  walked around until the folks from "Latitudes" showed up and we helped them get their booth all set up.

"Classes" started about 0900 and ran through the day.  Finally, we could attend a seminar where no one was trying to sell us something.  That's the problem when you go the other "shows".  The speakers are hawking their products.  We had "classes" on "Outfitting your boat for Cruising", "Cruising on a Smaller Boat and a Smaller Budget", "Anchoring", and "Fishing from a sailboat".  All the kinds of topics that we needed to attend.  Each lasted about 45 minutes and were great because they were "taught" by actual cruisers that had "walked the walk" and had the right to"talk the talk".  We took lots of notes on what they had to say.

We stopped for lunch--the same cheese burger and fries again and headed back for more classes in the afternoon.  At 1615 there was to be a get together at the bar for those "cruisers" that were heading south for Mexico.  Tracy and I showed up as did one of the "teachers" from the "class".   The three of us sat and chatted and had a beer and eventually another couple joined us.  That was it for those heading south from this group of boaters.  During one of the classes, the question was posed to the attendees as to how many of us were heading south and only about 6 hands went up.  Apparently last year over 30 hands went up.  I guess that is a sign of the economy.  Any how, we had a great time swapping stories and getting more valuable information about what to expect as we head south.  It was a one on one class.

We headed back to Zephyr as dinner was to be a shore with a "bring your own meat and a veggie to share" and "Latitudes" will provide the beer and wine.  The resort had two big grills set up and could have used a third as people crowded around trying to get their dinners cooked.  A good 100 people showed up for the festivities.  They were having a raffle during the evening  and we had already bought some tickets.  Here's how it went.  You could by them for $1.00 per ticket or for $10.00s you could have as many tickets as stretched from the tip of your finger to your armpit.  The third way was for $20.00, you got as many tickets as stretched from the tip of your fingers to the out stretched tip of your opposite hand.  Now you could use your length or find someone taller that had a longer stretch which is what we did.  We found a guy that was a few inches taller than myself and used his reach to get a few more tickets for our $20.00.  We ended up with 40 tickets for our $20.00.  As the dinner progressed(live band playing) the raffle ticket numbers were called out.  We won a nice rigging knife to add to our collection of the three we already have(some good and some bad).  Our friends--Jay and Terri--won the "grand prize" of a nice deep sea fishing rod and reel.  It was great that we both won a prize.

As the party was winding down, we wandered back to Puff and made our way back to Zephyr for the remainder of the evening.  As we had used a good bit of amps during the day, I fired up the generator to get some back in the batteries.  You can't run your generators between 2200 and 0700.  It keeps the anchorage somewhat quiet.  So that gave us about 75 minutes of run time to get what we could from the generator.  We shut her off promptly at 2200 and that was just about the end of the day for the two of us.

Tomorrow-Sunday, most of the cruisers will be leaving and we have decided to stay at least one more day as we don't need to be in LA for the transmission work till next week and I still need to call the shop and see when they want us to come in.  Plus, we need to find a decent marina to berth in during the work.  I expect we will be renting a car while there to get to some of the marine stores around LA.  We'll let you know how that goes early next week.

More to come!!