The crossing the day before had been wet enough to qualify as a baptism. If you missed Part 1 (https://setsalemarine.com/blogs/how-to-take-your-boat-to-catalina-island) — the trip over from Newport, the navigation tricks, the soaking — go read that first. By morning of day two the cove was glassy, the wind had finally died off, and the day was the kind of loose that only really happens when you're moored up on an island with no schedule — maybe a hike, maybe the beach, maybe just a long swim and a barbecue off the back of the boat. Day two of any Catalina trip is half the reason you make the run in the first place.
Breakfast and a Loose Plan
First order of business was breakfast. Italian sausages off the grill — same dinner protein, double-duty — plus toast and peanut butter and jelly. Simple, fast, the kind of meal you can make standing up while watching the water. The plan after that was straightforward: swim to shore, find a kayak, and use the kayak for the rest of the day to bounce between the boat and the beach. Without a tender on board, you're either a strong swimmer or you're stuck. Borrowing a kayak from someone willing to lend one is the kind of soft skill that makes these trips work.
A Quick Word on the Island
While I was eating, I started thinking about how this island actually got to be the way it is. The short version: the Wrigley family — yes, the gum people — ended up with Catalina about a hundred years ago and used to bring the Chicago Cubs out for spring training. Sometime in the last fifty or sixty years they made the call to put almost the entire island into a conservancy instead of developing it for profit. That decision is the reason Catalina still feels like Catalina. Avalon is the only proper town, and even there you don't actually own land — you lease it for about a hundred years. The other settlement, Two Harbors, is barely a settlement — a grocery store, a small restaurant, a few campsites, and that's about it. Everywhere else is preserved. The moorings around Avalon are leased to individuals; the moorings tucked into coves like the one we were in are either maintained by Two Harbors or leased out to clubs. The clubs mark their slice of the beach with a literal line in the sand, but most of the cove is open to anyone who shows up.
A Day on the Water
Once the kayak situation was sorted, we made it to the beach, swam, walked, and just kind of let the day do its thing. I flew the drone around for a while — there's no view of Catalina the drone doesn't make better — and brought the BBQ out off the transom for an afternoon cookout. When you're in one of these coves away from Avalon, you have to be self-sufficient. There's no marina to walk over to, no slip to plug into for shore power, and the closest grocery store is a kayak ride and a hike away. That's also what makes a cove like this what it is. You're either set up for it or you're not, and on a glassy summer day you don't really notice the trade.
The Avalon Fuel Mistake
By late afternoon it was time to start pointing the boat back toward Newport, but I had one more stop to make — Avalon — to top off fuel. A friend had told me it was running cheaper there for some reason that day. He was wrong. Seven dollars a gallon. I knew Avalon fuel was expensive going in, but the little birdie who whispered in my ear about it being reasonable today had bad information, and I shouldn't have trusted him. If you're already going to Avalon for the trip, fine — but never plan a fuel run there as a strategy. You'll cry at the pump. The real cost of owning a boat (https://setsalemarine.com/blogs/the-real-cost-of-boat-ownership-hidden-expenses-every-boater-should-know) comes from a thousand small lessons like this one, and seven-dollar fuel is one you only need to learn once.
The Run Home
After the Avalon fiasco I pointed the bow toward Orange County and ran. The trip back took an hour and fifteen minutes — twenty-two or twenty-three knots, a little quicker than I'd planned — but the conditions cooperated this time. No spray over the bow, no wind that wasn't supposed to be there, no soaking. A complete reversal of the day-one crossing, which is exactly the kind of thing you appreciate after a few trips out to this island.
This was day two of a weekend that started with a crossing of the channel (https://setsalemarine.com/blogs/how-to-take-your-boat-to-catalina-island) and ended at the slip in Newport. Watch the full day-two video below, and if you've got your own Catalina story — the good, the wet, or the seven-dollar-a-gallon kind — drop it in the comments.
