leaving Marina del Rey
For New Year's we went with all of the adult members of my family(and Linus), on a three day sailing excursion from Marina del Rey California to Catalina Island. We chartered the Boo Pacific, a 35 foot Jeanneau sloop. Our departure to Catalina island was delayed by a trip to the emergency room, and a relentless quest for fishing licences. The trip to our first port, Avalon is about 35 nautical miles, and the cruising speed of the Boo Pacific is about 6.5 nautical miles per hour. We made the trip mostly under engine power over a glassy sea. As we approached the island with the autiopilot set to a course that the GPS indicated would take us into the mouth of Avalon Bay, the sun was setting and Jessica noticed that our course appeared to be taking us straight into the distant rocky shore of Catalina Island. I tried to explain to her that it was an optical illusion because we were seeing in two dimensions the three dimensional shore and that we should trust the complicated and expensive electronic device on the boat that was, after all, in constant communication with multiple satellites (how can you argue with information you are getting from satellites?). Her next observation was more compelling as she noted that the boat's magnetic compass indicated that our course was 26 degrees different than what the GPS was telling us. Now we had information from satellites contradicting the immutable laws of physics, we had to go with the immutable laws of physics, and steered a new course using the magnetic compass. Thus we were able to watch the beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean confident that Jessica's observations (and the immutable laws of physics) had saved us from being crushed into the cliffs of Catalina Island (see note 1 below if you are interested in an explanation of the GPS malfunction).
After all of the delays we arrived at Avalon in the dark for our first attempt at mooring a sailboat; but before we could moor the boat we had to make our first nautical VHF radio communication with the Harbor Master to get a mooring assignment. Like many things on this trip, using the radio was something I had read about, but never actually done, so my transmission was something like, "Avalon Bay Harbor Master, Avalon Bay Harbor Master, this is . . . er. . . sailing vessel. . . er. . Boo Pacific. . . . . . we wanna like moore our . . .uh. . boat. . . or something. . . . over." I think this effectively communicated to the harbor master that we wanted a mooring for the night and that we were a bunch of nautically clueless weekenders from some landlocked state like Utah, or Ohio, that barely made it to their island from the mainland without being mercilessly crushed into the rocky shore.
To a bunch of people who barely know what they are doing, mooring an 12,000 lb sailboat feels kind of like parallel parking a semi-truck; It takes skill, finesse, and patience (all qualities that the males in my family have in abundance). I skillfully steered the boat through the tight corridors created by already moored boats, made a crisp turn to land the bow of our boat in perfect position, almost stopped over the pick-up buoy, the bow line was retrieved from the water, and fixed to the boat, to this point it was a perfect pick-up of a mooring and all that was left was to retrieve the stern line and attach it to the boat. As the helmsman, I was done, I had steered us into perfect position with great skill and finesse; I was so proud of a job well done that I thought I would leave the wheel to tell the rest of the crew (My Dad and my brother Matt) how to do their jobs, and bask in their awe of my perfect helmsmanship. Unfortunately I had left the engine in reverse instead of neutral, and as I walked towards the bow (front) of the boat, the stern (back) swung totally out of position towards the neighboring boat. Luckily the harbor master was standing by, (knowing based on my radio transmission that things were likely to go terribly, terribly wrong) and he sped to put his rubber sided boat between our swinging stern and the neighboring boat, and nudged our craft back into position to pick up the stern line. As he bid us good night to go back to the harbor master station and have a good laugh with his friends about our attempt to moor he tried to sooth our pride by commenting, "there's quite a current out here tonight," by which he meant, "there's quite a bunch of nautically clueless weekenders from some landlocked state like Utah, or Ohio that most likely barely made it to the island without being mercilessly crushed into the rocks out here tonight."
We cooked dinner, and fished off of the moored sailboat for the rest of the evening; we caught a couple of sea bass and this huge ray like creature (like alot of stuff we pulled from the bottom of the ocean on our trip we were all afraid to touch it).
The next morning (New Year's Eve Day) we drove our dinghy (little rubber-sided boat seen in bottom left of the first photograph) to shore and explored the city of Avalon. Avalon is an American Indian word that means, "I hope you brought lots of cash for overpriced souvenirs." It is the main population center of the island, and exists almost entirely for tourism.
Jessica glaring suspiciously at the GPS
Emily at the helm between Avalon and Two Harbors
In the afternoon we cruised 15 miles to Two Harbors, a tiny village on Catalina island with 297 inhabitants, one restaurant a general store and one hotel. We were able to do the only true "engine off" sailing during this leg of the journey. When we realized that we finally had some sailing wind, we pointed the boat into the wind and raised the sails. Matt and I were the only ones that had ever sailed a monohull sailboat before, most of the other crew's sailing experience was limited to watching from the beach as my Dad, Matt and I frequently capsized our 16 foot catamaran on lakes back in Utah during our quest for speed. Therefore it is not surprising that as I turned the Boo Pacific, sails raised, back into the wind, there was that beautiful feeling of the sails filling with wind, and the boat heeling (tipping) gently away from the wind and beginning to pick-up speed; and there were terrified shrieks from below deck as most of the crew thought that the heeling of the boat meant an imminent watery grave for the entire family.
At Two Harbors the mooring went much smoother. We had reservations at the Harbor Reef Restaurant in town, and we discovered that if you are the only restaurant in town you can get away with charging $46.00 a plate for a "special New Year's Eve dinner." The food was exquisitely mediocre, but the casual island ambiance was priceless.
We returned to the Boo Pacific, and spent the rest of the evening fishing and trying to catch lobsters in lobster nets. The Lobstering experience was one of the highlights of the trip. Armed with the knowledge imparted us by the dude who sold us the nets, Jessica, my sister Emily, Matt, and I got into the dinghy and headed-out along the rocky coastline in the almost moonless night. The lobster nets are lowered to the ocean floor with a nylon rope attached to a Styrofoam float with a glowstick stuck inside the float; we motered back to each net every thirty minutes, hauled it from the depths of the ocean, retrieved its contents, re baited it and dropped it again. Jessica and Matt were in the front of the dinghy, retrieving, baiting and dropping the nets. I drove (because of my finesse), and Emily held flashlights. One of the first nets we pulled-up had a big lobster in it that we were all afraid to touch (Emily and Jessica were afraid to touch it, Matt and I weren't afraid, we uh. . just chose not to touch it). Subsequent nets contained eels which were the freakiest looking sea creatures we had seen yet. It was an eery feeling being in the dark on the ocean in a tiny boat as the night fog rolled in. After about an hour we heard something splashing on the water's surface a hundred yards away and we realized that we were not alone. Well there were four of us in the boat, so even without this new creature we were not alone; Emily, who was the closest thing we had with us to a marine biologist (her main qualification as a marine biologist is that she really likes dolphins) identified the creature as a sea lion. After retrieving several baitless nets from the ocean floor we realized that the sea lion was following us and stealing the bait out of the nets, effectively thwarting our lobstering efforts. Once back to the Boo Pacific we found our captive lobster very resistant to being placed into boiling water, but we eventually prevailed with delicious results. We also caught a sand shark and a mackerel by fishing from the moored boat.
This is perhaps the worst picture ever taken of a lobster
On New Year's day we journeyed back to Marina Del Rey. We saw dolphins, sea lions and a whale. The trip back was an uneventful brilliantly executed piece of seamanship by a now experienced crew of sailors. It was an unforgettable journey.
Note 1: Off the coast of California magnetic North is 13 degrees different than true north. Marine charts show information according to magnetic north. Someone had tried to change the GPS from true to magnetic north by manually setting it 13 degrees differently, and then someone else had later figured out how to change it correctly from true to magnetic north and had done so without undoing the 13 degree manual setting. That's the theory anyway.
