"26 miles across the sea," the song says, "Santa Catalina, the island of romance."
And in its unspoiled simplicity, one of the best kept secrets of Los Angeles, USA.
We're headed for a week at the isthmus, evident as that notch in the mountains dead ahead. There are
only two towns on the 22-mile-long island -- famous Avalon, with its big band casino and many hotels,
and Two Harbors, our destination. No hotels. One restaurant. A throwback to the past .
"20 miles from Avalon, down at the other end of the island, is the isthmus,
where only a half mile of land separates the lee and weather sides of Catalina.
Like some mystic palm-fringed south sea isle the hills slope down on both sides to this narrow
strip where yachtsmen and movie stars relax and play in the languorous tempo of Tahiti.
We're lucky today because the famous commodore's cruise is on at the isthmus, where yachtsmen
from all up and down the coast gather for the greatest sailing event of the season.
And brother that's a lot of boats in any man's ocean."
Movie stars? Maybe. Languorous Tahiti? Well, the palm trees were planted to make it look that way
back in the 1930s, when that travelogue was made.
The island is a conservatorship and therefore not developed. Two Harbors looks much the same as it
did when we first sailed here in 1990. It does take a boat. You either asleep aboard or camp out ashore.
It's cold?
Ice cold!
Although not so much anymore, now I'm warming up.
You're done already, Kev? You don't want to swim? No, I'll go back out--
I just figured I'd--
Kev's looking for a martini, and then he'll come back in. For no, a rum drink--
What was your recommendation? Well, he wants a mai tai and we have pineapple juice, we have orange
juice and we have rum, so it's mai tai city. We don't have the maraschino cherries, is that okay?
That'll be fine, Tracy, I think we can live with that, thank you.
"The isthmus looks so much like the south seas that most of the south seas movies are made here ,
and we can see the sets from Rain, Old Ironsides, Mutiny on the Bounty and many another famous
picture still standing. As we look out across the isthmus past the headland, the sand sentinel
that guards the harbor, we feel the spell of the Pacific stretching endless miles to far off China,
the surf rolling in in a watery caress of the island it surrounds."
I have yet to get one of those watery caresses, all I get is long dusty hikes which all seem to be uphill.
In the mountains above are bison left behind like all the palm trees by a silent movie crew
goats once increased so much as to lure hunting parties
but for boat people the first expedition on foot is to the south, toward the other
side, the upwind side of the island, the side of Hawaii and Tahiti and Japan.
This is Cat Harbor, protected by high cliffs against the prevailing sea breeze
and a long walk to the general store to buy ice.
Let's have a look at 4th of July Cove, it's the first of a dozen anchorages that range up the
continental side of the island. Well, not anchorages exactly, but moorings provided for about 50 dollars a night.
The tiny 4th of July yacht club can turn into a real party if lucky enough to get invited,
and like other island clubs has shore side bunk houses for its members.
In fact, it's the lack of hotels that keeps Two Harbors simple and minimal. Alex and Kevin are
camping, which is how most visitors spend their nights. Some say a dirtnap is the way to go, and
to each his own of course. Some also say that the idea of trying to sleep on a rolling sailboat
is nausea unchained--and they have a point when a side swell at the isthmus
makes for a sea of violently swinging masts and sets the gimbal stoves a- swinging.
We awoke the next day to a flat calm and to find our new neighbor was Giles, just returned, he said,
from 18 years of sailing around the world. I saw the evidence on his 48-foot C&C design--
the weather cloths and solar panels, the heavy 9-ounce Dacron sails,
the twin furling headsails, the fuel jugs on deck and the marvelous wind generator in his cockpit.
Next morning he was gone without saying goodbye.
It's cold. We should have brought more jackets.
August in California.
Vantage points here are in ready supply, and that must be why goats multiplied so successfully on
the island. After a few days it feels like turning into one.
I grew up in New Jersey, swimming in New York harbor where the sun made pretty rainbows in the oil spills and summer camp was where juvenile court sent you.
But it seems every California native kid came here, an ongoing
summer jamboree of boy scouts, church groups junior lifeguards and windjammer adventures.
I would like a ah Diet Coke and Jack Daniels
What else for you?
And a martini, Hendricks if you have it.
Here's to you and me and nobody else.
How you doing, Ace?
Appalling but marvelous.
oh thank you
Look, she totally sees her boat. There's my boat!
[music]
I don't get to go cruising with family much these days, and it's not like offshore.
Moored safely bow and stern, surrounded by yachts, and you know you can put your coffee cup right down
anywhere, and it stays put. No hurricanes, no busted gear, no folks at home wondering if you're dead or alive or
just ignoring them for the fun of it. It seems so stable. Flat as a postcard. Beautiful without the
least thought of the unknown or those you left behind, because this time they came with you.
Bon appetit
Bon appetit!
Let's have a transom tour. Thelonious was designed in the 1980s, when the back
of sailboats looked like this.
The transom is the evidence of how yacht design has evolved.
Twin steering wheels and twin rudders--complicated. So why? Because you can walk to the boarding
platform without the gymnastics required in a boat like Thelonious, where the wheel is in the way.
The newer designs are wider, wider and wider. That's to permit a big owner's cabin under the cockpit
and a platform that makes it easy to board a dinghy. It's what the market demands, and no wonder,
after watching us climb up the side of my boat like sherpas up Everest. This is an intermediate
design called a scoop transom. Works well too, and even I'm getting used to the way it looks.
I'm taking a picture of your transom--of your stern, which is approximately 30 feet wider than mine.
...It's only about...23 feet wide.
So you have an end, an end-of-the- dock slip, right? ...Yeah I do, but we usually stay we're here most of the time--
Oh That's nice.
Yeah, we have a mooring....
That's great, good morning.
Here's a transom right out of Mutiny on the Bounty.
And a center cockpit design and a barbecue grill on the rail. which everybody has but me....
good morning
Things that blow up have proliferated, I mean that in the best possible way. Dinghies, rafts,
paddle boards and most amusing of all, sheets of floating foam
that kids can dance on as if they weren't on the water at all.
Yes, it's a Torqueedo electric outboard, it works fine, it's not as loud as it sounds. Range anxiety?
Well, yeah, it only goes an hour at full throttle or maybe three hours at half throttle,
and with a spare can of gasoline a regular outboard can motor all day.
All is compromise.
I'll meet you halfway on that.
Is there a better view from any seaside campsite?
This is where Alex and Kevin stayed, in a tent overlooking the harbor.
The boat was available, but well even on a 38-foot sailboat four adults in harbor is pretty intimate.
Offshore, one watch is always on deck, which effectively increases the living space below.
So, J.K. Rowling wrote a detective story under another name--
How do you like it? It was entertaining. Galbraith is the name, last name of her
her name for these novels. And is it Harry Potter characters? Little kids running around with
with magic wands? No, absolutely not. They're more in the age range of 30 to 40 year olds,
and it's a typical detective, very typical detective
genre, set in modern times, filled with the British paparazzi, the aristocracy, money, lack of money
and a hero, a hero who was in the army and his father just so happened to be a rock star but
he's the illegitimate son so he never got any money. His father is still around. People always say
Oh, your father is Johnny rocker! and he's like yeah, no, yes. Do you see him, do you speak to him? Never!
Grading A to F, what grade would you give it?
B minus.
Well, I think it's a high grade, high grade.
we had no idea what this inflatable armada
was all about somehow word went out and the word was gather unto me
Tracy did figure it out eventually
Beneteau. That's what it's about.
All the people who own Beneteaus?
Did i say that Two Harbors is all about hiking? It's the Garden of Eden with no way out.
And fine by me. We dragged our kids here 25 years ago, the same tree I think. You remember, right kids?
But they don't. Kids don't seem to remember anything the parents do. They do that on purpose.
...and no worries because we're going to leave tomorrow, but we do think about you and Tom, and what we....
[music, drumming]
Catalina Island. Don't tell anybody. Keep the secret among us.