SV Luna Moth

We felt bad about cruising the California Channel Islands, but never making it to the storied destination that is Avalon, but northerly wind and swell, coupled with us not wanting to feel like a James Bond martini, kept us from wanting to moor there. Fortunately an easy, though touristy, solution existed: take the Newport Beach ferry to Santa Catalina and visit it that way.

The ferry ride over was nice and even though we see dolphins all the time while sailing, we happily watched them splash around the boat, ooohing along with the other tourists. When we arrived, the mooring field was like a washing machine, making us glad we didn’t bring Luna Moth over.

We had booked a jeep tour of the island, but had some time before it started, so we wandered along the shore to the Casino, a landmark who’s name means meeting place, and is not a place of gambling. It’s a cool old building built by the Wrigley family, who developed Avalon and set up the conservancy that now controls much of Santa Catalina Island. Along with a movie theater on the lower level, the building has a massive ballroom on the top floor, complete with a stage for the orchestras that played there.

We wandered back into town and had lunch at a little bar. It wasn’t noisy. We made no attempts to call anyone. (Lisa’s attempt at a Trop Rock reference.)

We got really lucky with the Jeep tour of the island that we took as the sky cleared up and we had great views of the island.

The island has several species only found there, including the adorable Catalina Island Fox. The fox are a dwarf descendant of the grey fox and are the size of a small dog. We got to see a couple of them hanging out near the road as we drove through the Conservancy.

The island is also home to about 100 bison which are descendants of ones brought in back in the days when the island was used as a location for shooting Westerns. While we did get to see one off in the distance, it wasn’t something that we could photograph.

The turn around point of the tour was a very small airport cut into the top of one of the mountains on the island. Apparently it’s a destination for pilots in training who fly over, make a short landing on the field, grab a cookie, and fly home. We grabbed cookies, but we have no desire to fly there as it looked pretty scary.

Our tour guide was a wealth of information about the island, the work of the Conservatory to preserve it, and the people who make Avalon their home. Along the way we’d pass other vehicles and he’d stop to chat with them, or tell us stories about them, as he seemed to know everyone.

While we didn’t get to sail to Avalon, we were happy that we could turn a blah stay in Newport Beach into a chance to tour it and the surrounding Conservancy before sailing further south on our way to Mexico…