Santa Catalina Island

We went to Santa Catalina Island on Thursday. Jerry wanted to take the 15 minute helicopter ride to the island but I, being cheap, suggested the less expensive, one-hour boat ride. We had planned on taking the boat from the Queen Mary landing but that is closed after Labor Day. So we had to drive into Long Beach to catch our boat.

But it turned out that we got to see our home away from home on the way out of the port. We were inside the Commodore Lounge and saw the Queen Mary through slightly hazy windows that had the sun shining on them. So the pictures from the boat are rather washed out.

If you follow the line of the mast near the boat's stern (on the left) down to the round portholes just below the rectangular windows on the ship's Promenade deck, you'll be looking at the portholes in our room. Sorry that the picture is so fuzzy.

Here's the boat that took about 65 minutes to take us the 26 miles to the island.

We wandered through Avalon and quickly got bored with their touristy junk shops. After lunch we got tickets for the two-hour Skyline Drive tour. The tour wasn't in the towed bus-thing shown in the tour's video. We were in an old bus. Jerry and I sat right behind the driver and had a great view.

Here's the view of Avalon as we're climbing up the hill.

The road was very windy and narrow. And it had steep drops but was lined with eucalyptus trees to keep us from careening to our deaths. At one point Richard, our tour guide and driver, said that we had to do a stretch of the road with no slowing. I started making a movie just after he started this mad dash up the mountain. I hope this gives you a feel for what we went through.


The tour took us to the Airport in the Sky where we had 20 minutes to recover from the thrill ride up the mountain.

This is the bus that brought us safely up to the airport.

There's a nature center that has a tile map of the island. Here's Jerry looking at the far end of the island. Avalon is at the narrow part of the island near the left end of the island and the airport is about half way to the far end.

A feature of the tour is visiting with the bison that were imported for a silent movie that was filmed on the island.

On the way back to Avalon, we got to stop at a scenic spot overlooking the ocean.  I took five pictures and Photoshop Elements did a bang-up job of pasting them together for me. Aren't computers and some computer programs amazing?

(I guess Blogger has a limit to the width of pictures. This was much larger. The picture is all there, they just shrunk it. If anybody needs to see a more detailed version, just ask and I'll email it to you.)

Here's another view of Avalon's bay as we're coming back into town.

Here are the condos where Richard, the tour guide, says Babs is an owner.

I found this juxtaposition of the psychic and the Coke machine amusing.

Not only can you enjoy a Coke with your Full Life Reading, you can visit the psychic in her Santa Barbara location.  I suppose she uses astral projection to commute between the two spots.

There was a beautiful sunset on the return trip but my camera couldn't deal with it.  Here's a blurry picture to give you a bit of an idea what we got to see.

It was a nice way to spend a day.  Next time we'll have to take one of the longer tours.