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Published: December 27th 2006
Santa Catalina Island - 20 miles offshore into the Pacific Ocean from Long Beach, CA.
Mileage: ~800 miles RT from home
Itinerary: 22 December: drive down 101S towards Long beach.
23 December: to Catalina Island
24 December: Catalina Island
25 December: Back to Long beach; back home.
Where is Catalina Island? I did not know anything much about this place. All I knew was I wanted to camp here. And there was a convenient campground close to the city. So, that was my first reservation-
Hermit Gulch campground.
This was some 1 mile from the city of Avalon.
Dec 21st: The usual pre-vacation jitters😊 I had this severe cold/fever attack. So everything slowed down a bit. Tried hard to sleep early.
Dec 22nd:Left home around 4.30am and it was 101 all the way down. A couple hrs into, I fell asleep. When I awoke, I saw a windmill on 'Days Inn'. I knew I was in
Solvang. Solvang is an authentic Danish town in Southern California. Probably one of a kind! Around 9 am, we entered the city. We were on hwy 246 (Main Street) & the city looked deserted. Time to get the gadgets out & take a
walk. The visitor center that opened up @ 10 was not of much help, but their maps were. The parking lots all wore a dull look. And then we spotted a street(Copenhagen dr) which had all the people in the town.
Suddenly there were people everywhere. I wanted to try out their authentic “Christmas danish”, but would have been better off without it!😞
The whole of the town is in 4-5 streets max. The famous blue windmill seemed to be under construction, but the town as such looked so pretty. Bidding goodbye to Solvang, we took the road less traveled (hwy 154) to
Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is a very beautiful city. More prettier than I had expected. A very posh area with beautiful beach houses(could not help thinking, “ in the event of a Tsunami...?”).We enjoyed East beach (a long beach with Palm trees on one side and the ocean on the other).
Driving further down on hwy 1, we came across all the million dollar homes of Malibu catching a beautiful sunset on the way. By the time we came to Santa Monica, it became dark, and the traffic started ticking us off!
We reached Long Beach around 6.30pm. Downtown Long beach had a Walmart and we had to go there to pick up my medicines. Never seen a worser traffic in my entire life. I just wanted to crash then. We finally found a parking and came out. People J walking across all roads. Was I in India? Well! We did the same, so no complains. It was 2 days to Christmas and we were greeted by the street-side Santa Claus & of course the carols. Well! Maybe, not so bad.
Our hotel was right next street, but it took us 30 min to get there by car. 😞 Vagabond Inn, Long beach downtown. One of the very pleasant hotels that we've stayed at. I did mention this to them before we checked out.
Dec 23rd: We had to catch the 10 am ferry
(Catalina Express) to Catalina Island. A short 1 mile drive took us there. They did not allow our camping stove/fuel in the ferry. So, had to drop it back in the car. It was as sunny as it could get. We were already missing home!
We picked the open seats on the upper deck.
Boy! It was so windy! And the engine sound made me seasick for a while. I made up my mind to sit inside on our return journey. After exactly, 1 hr 15 min, we were walking down in Avalon, the only city in Catalina Island. The first thing I saw on the Island was the Casino building and the second was surprisingly a Garibaldi(an orange coloured fish) near where the ferry docked.
We were a little heavy on our luggage side due to our extra-huge camera bag. For $2 per person, the city's trolley took us to our campground. We had a nice tour of the city on our way up. We had no feeling that we were on an island. We could see the smog-covered mainland from here. God! They should ban driving in Los Angeles.
At the Ferry Landing we saw the
Adventure tours office and checked about Nautilus(the yellow submarine). We were glad that they brought back Nautilus from Long beach after inspection & still better we got kids' rate. That was like half the price. Amazing! Sunday, 1.45pm tour.
Hermit Gulch campground was not too far - 1 mile up on
Avalon Canyon road, away from the hustle & bustle. We were a little more than shocked when we saw the campground. We were the only people. We met the ranger and he told us to pick a campsite up on the hills as those received the first sunshine. We borrowed stove from him for $6 per night. He was surprised that they did not allow stove on the ferry. He asked us to pick up fuel from
Vons, as it would be much cheaper.
We had our lunch & started our walk down to the city. The city had visitors, but too many for a beach town. Turned out that all that crowd was from a cruise ship (Monarch of the Seas) that was anchored in the sea. Ferries were bringing /taking people from the cruise to Avalon. But, by 5.00pm, the main Crescent ave was barren. We turned around to see that the Cruise was leaving. We picked up the fuel & some snacks from Vons before catching Casino Royale at the Casino. I'd heard so much about the casino's interior. When we stepped in, it was as if we were in a 5 star hotel. Red
carpet welcome, with an amazing theater. It could hold 1125 people. I am not a Bond fan, but loved the fast-paced movie.
It was 9.30pm when the movie got over & we had a long way to go before reaching home. It became cold and a little windier now. But since we were walking very fast, we did not feel it. When we felt the road grow, a golf cart stopped in front of us and 2 good Samaritans offered to give us a ride to the campground. We were at the campground in about 5 minutes. If we'd walked, it would have taken us not less than 40 min. We could not thank them enough. They turned back after dropping us, meaning, they came up all the way only for us. Bless them, God!
It was pitch dark & I am not a big fan of wild animals in the open, even if they are just deers. In the light, I would see 2, 4 & 6 eyes reflecting. It was not funny. I just wanted to cook, eat & get inside the tent. Ganesh seemed to enjoy my fear a little too much by
introducing ghost stories.😞
It was almost midnight by the time we slept. The next day, we had to be down, by the bay by 9.30am.
Dec 24th: Night was cold, but bearable. The next day, we got tired waiting for the sun to be up. Master did not show up before 8.30am. But when he shone, boy, he shone bright! We had to literally run down so that we do not miss the kayak tour.
We were just on time at
Descanso beach club. They run tours year round. After all the formalities, we were provided with wet pants, wind breakers, a float jacket & lots of encouragement. Lance was our tour guide and he gave us basic instructions about paddling. The thought of being pushed in a kayak into the sea, sounded fun. We had another couple from India too! It was going to be a 2 hr 3 miles round trip excursion. Lance spotted some blue heron, Garibaldi & bald eagles too! He gave us so much info about the island, its geology, etc. Catalina island was bought & is still owned by the Wrigley people(yeah! same chewing gum)!!! And, Catalina island has a normal population of 4000
people.
Lance also told about the apartment rents, there. A small studio rents out at $1400! I will no more complain about the rental rises in bay area!!!
After shoulder paining paddling to frog rock beach, we were all given a much awaited cookie. It tasted so good. After some shell picking, we started paddling back. Ganesh got over excited on seeing a pelican on a rock(close to shore), so he wanted to go there. But there were waves in there & I did not feel so good about it. I called out to Lance and he helped us out.
The other couple had a similar experience where she went out near the shore and got caught on top of a rock and might have tumbled into the ocean. What an experience!
Paddling back to shore was uneventful, but beautiful. It was almost time for our submarine tour. So, we went off to 'The Nautilus', the semi-submersible submarine The inside of the submarine was like being in Disneyland, with all the gadgets. The first experience of being underwater is mind blowing. Realizing that we were not in an aquarium was cool.
For $6 we
could feed the fishes. It was so cool. At every feed shot, fishes flocked in. We did not get to see a sea lion/seal/sharks. But in summer, you can see lobsters/sharks etc. Would have been more fun.
Soon, the 45 minute tour came to an end. We tried to rent a golf cart, just for experiencing it, but it was all closed for Christmas. So, we walked to lover's cove and saw Nautilus from the top. Also, spotted a blue heron busy fishing.
Other activities that happen in Catalina islands are:
glass bottom boats ride, snorkelling, scuba diving, para sailing, jet skiing(summer) etc.
The Sun would be gone soon and would get dark & cold all over again. So, we walked back home in 40 min. Had an early dinner and I went off to sleep.
Dec 25th: Christmas!! We got ready, had breakfast & started packing out tent. I just noticed a dead deer & ravens/cat coming over for the carcass. I returned the stove to the Ranger at the campground! $12 due...He just sd Merry Christmas!!! & off went the $12. All are happy on Christmas. After wishing "Merry Christmas" to less
Santa Barbara
a whale shaped chairthan a million people, we caught the 10.50am trolley just in time to catch our 11.45am ferry. As decided, we picked the indoors & did not regret it.
After catching up with a friend, we left Los Angeles around 3.10 pm to reach home at 9.10pm. Long drive along Interstate 5, but thankfully, no traffic!
Only too glad to be home! If not for anything else, at least the weather. No Sun at all! How pleasant.
Got to medicine my skin from all that sunburn!!!
Next travel in a week! 😊
-travelbuffs
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TR.aveler
non-member comment
Cool writeup! You should be really feeling better to do this :-)