It was 5:00 pm. The Arearea, a gleaming Catalina 42 mk2 sailboat, was secured to a mooring at last. Barry Galvin went below and prepared cocktails and hors d'ouvres in the galley.

 Barry prepares a salmon roll

A calm cocktail hour was extremely welcome. We had been through a very exciting, perhaps even harrowing three-hour sail from Long Beach.

A few miles out. The wind was just starting to pick up.
Shortly after it was taken, the wind kicked up to 18 - 20 kts.  When the boat speed hit 10.5 kts, the autopilot gave up and I had to use both hands to steer.

Maury Muehle had generously paid to charter the forty-two foot boat for three days. Maury hadn't done much sailing, but he enjoyed the rough trip.

Maury leans back on the high side

Barry Galvin had been a U.S. Navy officer aboard troop transports, so he knew how to hang on. Barry was given the job of Navigator by the Captain, even though Barry had never been on a sailboat before.

Barry

Bill McCall had sailed to Catalina Island with me many times in the 60's and 70's, so Bill was given the most strenuous duties.

Bill awaits orders

We were all far too busy during most of the sail to Catalina to take many pictures, even when we were greeted by a pod of bottle-nosed Dolphins. They surrounded the boat, leaping out of the water and following us. Even when the pod left, a couple of individuals stayed with us for a long time.

We had hoped to get a mooring in Avalon Harbor, but they were all taken. The Harbor Master directed us to a mooring in Descanso Bay, which is outside Casino Point. We took a shoreboat to Avalon and ate dinner at the El Galleon, which used to be a top spot for fresh abalone, but it has unfortunately gone downhill. Avalon has become a haven for tourists but in my view can no longer be considered a top destination for boaters.

Back on the boat after dinner, we were too tired (and some too inexperienced) to start a rubber of bridge, so we hit the sack. The next morning I brewed some coffee. Barry lowered the swim ladder and jumped into the water.  I have often swum off Catalina Island, but only with a wet suit.  Catalina has the coldest 75 degree water in the world. Barry swam anyway while the the rest of us warmed up with coffee and bloody marys. We had breakfast in Avalon, then vacated the mooring and headed to Isthmus Harbor, which is about 12 nautical miles west of Avalon. Isthmus Cove is officially called "Two Harbors" because Catalina Harbor is on the other side of the isthmus, which is less than a mile wide.  Many WWII movies were filmed on and around Catalina Harbor.

After power-sailing for about 1 1/2 hours, we arrived at Isthmus Harbor about 1:00 pm on Tuesday. Bill McCall still felt a bit funky from seasickness the day before, but he performed his duties admirably as we entered Isthmus Harbor.

Bill struggles to furl the sail

The Captain is pleased

McCall & Galvin are pleased with themselves

Maury is pleased

This is one of the things he was looking at

We were assigned one of the best moorings in the harbor. The Captain slowly took the bow so close to its whisker pole that Barry didn't even have to bend over to retrieve it. However, Navy Lt. Galvin failed to secure the mooring line to the forward cleat adequately, and the wind began to blow us back out to sea. The Captain was forced to back up, do a cookie, and approach again. This time the Navigator got the loop under both ears of the cleat, and we were secure. As we looked ashore, this is what we saw.

We showered, shaved, and after a couple of cocktails aboard, went ashore for dinner.

There is a single restaurant on the Isthmus. In the 60's it was called "Bombard's", whose owner, Doug Bombard, was a powerful Catalina dude anywhere west of Avalon. Fritz Brace used to do some lawyering for the Wrigleys (who owned the whole Island), and told me that Bombard had married into the family. If I ever needed "special" treatment, Bombard was the guy to see. The restaurant is still there, but now it's called the "Harbor Reef" or something like that. They serve outstanding food for a restaurant whose boating customers are captive, and the ambience and help are also outstanding. Our server, Jennifer, arranged to have the following picture taken.

(L/R) "Swabbie", "Navigator", "Owner", and "Captain"

Jennifer is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is an undergraduate student at LSU. She joined us for another shot, but the picture taker messed it up. She is very pretty. She found the summer job on the internet, and is housed dorm-like with others like her, behind the restaurant. I wish I had taken a picture of her for you to see. However, I have her email address and will get one.

It was a nice respite. Well, I mean, most females on Catalina Island seem to be either menopausal or pubescent.

After dinner, we took a shoreboat the 100 or so yards from the main dock to the boat. The shoreboat driver wouldn't let us pay the fare, thanks to a $20 tip laid on him by Maury for a small favor earlier that day. Maury tends to do things like that.

We were still exhausted. We sat in the cockpit and sipped cognac. The sky was perfectly clear, and there was no light pollution. Countless stars loomed overhead, including the Milky Way. To the east, Mars rose on its closest approach to earth in 60,000 years. It was an ethereal experience; one could have sat there in the cockpit all night and never get bored. But we were too tired. We sacked out.  Each of us had his own cabin, but McCall opted to sleep in the cockpit.

The next morning, Barry lowered the ladder and dove into the water, and we again sipped freshly brewed coffee and watched him swim in the cold  water. Then, breakfast ashore. We hated to leave the Isthmus because it was so pleasant there. A soft morning breeze; a lot like Hawaii. But we planned to meet Larry Greiner in Long Beach for dinner. Dr. Greiner, who runs the Extended MBA Program for the USC Marshall School of Business, missed the sail because of a USC MBA Course (or something) that he was running in Rancho Bernardo. He was going to drive to Long Beach and meet us at the boat at 4:00 pm. Then, we planned to dinner it somewhere.

We vacated the mooring at Isthmus Harbor at 11:30 am and headed for Long Beach.  What was our heading, I asked our navigator?  We had sailed to Avalon on a heading of 185 degrees, but we were returning from 12 miles west of Avalon. We power-sailed past the Harbor Master on the way out of the harbor. "What's the magnetic heading to Long Beach?" McCall shouted. "I have no idea." He said. Navy Lt. Galvin, ("Navigator"), realized immediately that he had to plot a course. He fiddled with parallels and a pencil over a soggy chart that luckily happened to be aboard, and confidently proclaimed the return course to be "twenty degrees, maybe twenty-two". We continued to power-sail. I put the boat on a heading of 22 degrees and engaged the autopilot.

Even though Isthmus Harbor was clear and bright, we soon hit fog. Catalina Island faded into obscurity almost immediately. The wind was dead calm. Another pod of dolphins saw us and rushed the boat and played with us for a while. Then we saw a pod of pilot whales. When we first saw the ghostly outline of the coast, I sensed that Galvin had miscalculated our return course, but I decided to stay with it anyway. When we got close enough to make out detail, we saw a harbor gate dead ahead. Alas, it was the wrong gate! It was ok. It took us into the outer LA Harbor, and only five or six miles from the Long Beach gate we wanted. It was a forgivable mistake on the Navigator's part. He had simply plotted a course to the wrong port. I'm glad it wasn't Seattle.

We arrived in plenty of time to meet Larry Greiner. Larry treated us to a marvelous dinner at Parker's Lighthouse Restaurant in Long Beach.

Dinner at the LightHouse Restaurant

Our Dinner Host, Dr. Larry Greiner

I am blessed to have such wonderful friends. Larry, Barry and Maury are already 70 years old. Bill will be 70 next week; I will be 70 on January 30. We are too old to do this again. Hell, we are too old to do it now. I remember prancing about on a pitching sailboat deck many times in the past. On Monday, I boarded the boat with a cane, and didn't leave the helm except to use the head, in which the boat lurched up many times to hit me somewhere. Every day, I discover a new bruise. Three days after returning, I still don't have my land legs back, and I feel like I was hit by a truck.

But, we did it!! I'm proud of it.

Dick

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08-31-2003