Finally vacation time arrived and, by no small coincidence, worked out to be at exactly the same time as the annual SoCal Potters sail to Catalina Island. The destination was to be Isthmus Cove near Catalina's west end. The plan was to be in the water and ready to go at 6:00 a.m. at Davey's ramp in Long Beach. Allowing an hour to rig Slowdance and travel time, that meant leaving the house at not later than 4:30. This was all accomplished and after a brief skippers conference and the always sage advice from Skipper Bill, we were ready to go. There were, I think, 11 boats in all at this point. It was a mix of P19s, like Slowdance, P15's and a couple of Montgomery 15s, one of which came all the way from Utah for the trip.

The wind was near dead calm in the early morning hours, so a good part of the journey was going to be by outboard. This is always a tradeoff between having to motor a large part of the way if you leave early or getting in nasty weather if you leave late. Prudence and good planning favored leaving early.

The trip over was long, but fairly uneventful. I was trolling a feather jig just for fun and managed to hook a barracuda about 3 feet long. I pulled it in and we looked at each other for a few minutes. I finally decided that I didn't want to share the 6 foot cockpit with a 3 foot barracuda any longer, didn't have enough room in my ice chests and tossed him back. If it would have been a tuna, I would have tossed the bacon and eggs to make room.

Three of the 15 footers in the group clear the Long Beach breakwater in the picture above. There are two Potters following one of the Montgomerys. Notice that even though they are motoring in the light air they have their mainsails up. This makes the small boats much more visible and is a habit that I have adopted, as well.

The Catalina Isthmus is only about 1/4 mile across and, from the sea appears as a notch in the island. Click on the image above for a slightly larger version and you will also see the very white bird rock on the left and ship rock on the right. You don't want to get too close to either one of these as there are large kelp beds that make for good diving and poor sailing. Submerged rocks can also be a problem.

Slowdance eases past Ship Rock at a respectable distance. The wind had picked up enough for sailing about an hour, or so, out and we were making good time under sail.

The harbor master met us on the way in, as is usual in the controlled anchorages and moorings on Catalina. I told him there would be another 10, or so, boats about this size right behind me and he put us on a string line just off a very nice beach in the cove. In the picture above you can see Slowdance (second from left) and some of the rest of the fleet.

There are two options for getting ashore (not counting swimming). You can bring some kind of a dingy or call the water taxi. Most of us opted for the former and most of the Potter folks carry some kind of inflatable craft. For Slowdance, this is a small inflatable kayak purchased for about $100 on sale at West Marine. It worked well enough. Soon inflatable kayaks and dinghies, some with outboards, had popped up all around and we headed ashore for dinner.

Capt. Howie had planned a pot luck barbecue so we brought whatever we had and started cooking and warming on either the grills provided or a couple of small portable ones that some of the folks had brought along. We ate and chatted and generally had a great time. Then it was back to the boats to catch some sleep and get ready for day 2

For day 2, Capt. Howie had some Geocaching activities planned (see: http://www.geocaching.com/) He had four or five sets of coordinates for geocaches around the two harbors area. This was a great idea and we all had fun looking around for them.

The image above is Catalina Harbor - typically known as Cat Harbor and is the second harbor for which Two Harbors gets its name. As you can see from the photograph, the harbor cuts fairly deeply into the island and so is very well protected. There is a free anchorage at the innermost part of the harbor, inside the lines of mooring buoys. The water is fairly shallow at this end and boats with deeper drafts and fixed keels should pay attention to depth and tide. Isthmus cove is a short walk away.

Thursday night was dinner at the restaurant, which turned out to be quite good even if it was the only one on this end of the island. By now time had become fairly meaningless as we settled into the absence of routines and schedules. People came and went. We ate when we got hungry and just relaxed. There are rest rooms, showers, a grill, restaurant and bar as well as laundry facilities and a porta-potty servicing area at the isthmus. There is also a small general store with odds and ends that one may need. It's a very easy life.

This hermaphrodite brig showed up and anchored outside of the moorings in Isthmus cove. She stayed only one night. I think a few people came ashore, but I didn't see them and they sailed the next morning.

Day 3 - Friday. Donna was unable to make the trip over with me because of her work schedule, so she made arrangements to come over on the Catalina Express. This only takes about an hour and a half to make the trip from San Pedro (compare with 6 hours by sailboat). I also decided to bring Slowdance around the west end and into Cat Harbor for Friday night. Counting the zigzag course we had to make on the north side, the trip worked out to about 19 miles by water to end up 1/4 mile away from where we started. Since Isthmus Cove is about 23 miles from Long Beach, it was almost as far around to the other side of the Isthmus.

Since I was only going to end up a short walk from where I started a couple of the other guys volunteered to join me, Dave Kautz and Fuh-Shing Pan. Both were great company on the trip and the extra hands were very welcome for sail handling and when it came time to anchor in Cat Harbor. The trip took about six hours, but seemed much shorter as we chatted about this and that. It was mostly sailing with a pleasant breeze.

It's mandatory that two anchors be used in Cat Harbor, so we set them fore and aft. The bottom is fairly soft, but the Danforths hold well. I ferried Fuh-Shing and Dave over to the dingy dock in the kayak and we made the short walk over to the other side just as Donna was arriving. Since it was Friday night, Isthmus cove had been filling up with boats and the weekend party began. We had a pretty good Catalina lobster dinner at the restaurant, the met some of the other Potter folks outside and stopped by for a bit of conversation. I think this is the only night I stayed up past 9, but not by too much.

Donna and I walked back across the isthmus and paddled out to Slowdance. I had installed the smaller Wheems & Plath oil lamp in a gimbaled mount in the cabin and it gives just the right amount of light and a little warmth in the cabin. Cat Harbor was millpond smooth and far enough from the more active folks on the other side of the isthmus. We sipped a little wine that I had brought from the mainland, talked and soaked up the cozyness of the little P19 cabin and the gentle lamplight. This would be my third night in a row sleeping on Slowdance and I found it quite comfortable.

Most of the Potter Fleet was heading back at 7:00 on Saturday morning from Isthmus Cove. We'd have to start much earlier than that to catch them, so we decided to wait long enough to get showers and a breakfast at the grill. We weighed anchor and headed out at about 0800. Saturday turned out to be a very nice, if somewhat windless, day. We ran into four schools of dolphins on the way back. They often came right up to the boat and many were jumping out of the water as they fed.

Slowdance at anchor in Cat Harbor with two larger boats.

The ever playful dolphins always seem to take a break from their feeding to check Slowdance out.

Other than the surprisingly large number of dolphins we saw on this trip, the return voyage was not particularly eventful. We pulled into Davey's at about 5:00, threaded our way through the crowd and had Slowdance back on her trailer in a jiffy. Forty five minutes later we were on the freeway and heading up to San Pedro to pick up the jeep Donna had driven up to the ferry the day before.

It was an outstanding trip. The boating was good as was the company and camaraderie of the SoCal Potters. The P19 has proven to be a very comfortable pocket cruiser, even for a fairly extended stay. I feel quite certain that if I didn't have to eventually return to work, I could have stayed quite a long time at Cat Harbor and been very happy.

Additional modifications for the trip: Added the boats name in vinyl lettering to the sides aft and mounted the Wheems and Plath oil lamp. I also found that I had had a problem with the battery mount. In the new boats, International Marine has begun putting the batteries on a large mounting base glassed in under the vee berths. This is a great idea and as soon as I get a chance I will do the same for Slowdance. Meanwhile, I added three heavy footman loops to the inside cabin wall and strapped the battery, inside a battery box, to them horizontally and vertically. This seems to be okay for now, but I think the new design is a better one. Otherwise, the only thing I had to do was change the oil in the top and bottom of the outboard, provision and go. Total gas consumption for the trip was about 5 gallons out of a 6.5 gallon tank. The Honda is amazingly frugal, but it probably would have been better to fuel up again before coming back. I think if I was planning on staying at Cat Harbor again, I would also bring along one of the little folding dollies that people use for groceries, etc. It would make it much easier to carry gas containers, porta-potties or ice chests across the isthmus.

Besides the dolphins, we saw one bald eagle at Cat Harbor and I saw a fish floating on the surface like a ray. After discussing it with others, we suspect it was probably a sunfish.

Now I'm ready to start planning the next trip!

Return to Log Index