We chartered a Catalina 320 and bareboated from Redondo Beach, CA to Catalina Island, a crossing of ~30 miles. We had a total of four sailing days so we took our time and went round the NW side of the island first and moored in Catalina Harbor. A very desolate, but beautiful place. From there we sailed around the Hawaii side of the island to Avalon. What a great sail, 15 - 20 knot winds on a perfect run down wind.
I had heard horror stories about how crowded Avalon can be during the summer. I highly recommend arriving on a Sunday afternoon as we had the whole place to ourselves. It really is a beautiful little town with a lot of neat shops and things to do. We rented bikes and covered most of the town in about 3 hours. Well worth the trip.
Finally, we set sail back up to Two Harbors. Again, on a Monday afternoon we had the place to our lonesome. We got in kind of late, but lucked out and managed to finagle our way into a HUM-V tour of the western end of the island. This sounds a little cheesy, but was one of the highlights of the trip. Our guide was an expert on the flora and fauna of the island and a general renaissance type scholar. Not to mention a former Special Forces medic who knew how to put the hummer through its paces. Fascinating trip with enough excitement to really make it interesting.
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