… Santa Catalina is a-waiting for me.
If you live in southern California, sooner or later you’ll find yourself thinking, hmm, I should go to Catalina, aka Catalina Island, aka Santa Catalina Island, aka one of the several Channel Islands off the coast of California near Los Angeles and Orange County. It’s not #1 for a week’s visit to SoCal, but maybe if you’re here for two weeks you’ll want to go for the day, or to stay over a night or two. Most of the action is in Avalon, the main town on the island.
You can get there by private boat if you have one or know someone with one. You can take a helicopter ($200 round trip from Long Beach).
Most people take the ferry from Dana Point, Newport Beach, San Pedro, Long Beach or Marina del Rey. Round-trip tickets vary between about $60 and $90, since distances vary from the different mainland points of departure to Avalon (the main town and harbour on Catalina). The ferry between Dana Point and Avalon takes about 1 hour 20 minutes and costs $60 round-trip. The ferry is clean and roomy, with fairly comfortable seats. You can buy snacks and drinks (including booze) on board. Suitcases can go down in the hold for the duration of the trip, so you don’t have to schlep them all with you.
It’s best to book a hotel before you go. In low season you’ll be ok and have your pick when you arrive in Avalon, but in high season the place is jam-packed full and I expect the locals have a dim view of people sleeping on the sand. Which is skimpy anyhow.
This isn’t the sort of place you go for vast expanses of sandy beach. There’s a small one on Crescent Avenue, the main drag that runs along the oceanfront, and one other, Descanso Beach, just past the Casino. It’s pleasant but small. It’s also where you catch the zipline and rent kayaks and scuba gear. Lots of very clean bathrooms and changing rooms.
We took a guided kayak trip from Descanso three or four years ago. (We’re good kayakers, but it is the Pacific Ocean.) She knew a lot about the local flora and fauna, and took us to a tiny secluded beach, through a school of juvenile leopard sharks, which was beyond exciting. They are totally non-aggressive, and my braver friend went swimming amongst them. You can also scuba from Descanso.
Back to hotels: here’s something to bear in mind when booking one. Think carefully about choosing one that’s up a hill from downtown Avalon, even if it might be a little cheaper. Avalon’s downtown is mostly on a small coastal flat, under 1 mile square. All the restaurants and attractions are there, on the flat. After that, everything is up-hill. The up-hill hotels have free shuttles, but that means that if you want trucked back up the hill from downtown you have to phone for it, and then wait for it to come get you. They are free, but then there’s the should I/shouldn’t I tip decision.
Getting around the island: the flat part of Avalon is small and very pleasant for walking, even with small children or pushing a baby buggy. Lots of quaint little cottages to gawk at. But there are no cars allowed. The locals are allowed to own golf carts, which you will see everywhere. Visitors can rent a golf cart for the staggering sum of $40 for ONE HOUR.
There are a few taxis – white minivans – on the island. They meet each ferry, and hang out on Crescent Avenue at the base of Sumner. Taxis are a flat rate of $10.
Vacation rentals lists cottage or condo rentals that might include a golf cart in the fee. There’s a Vons grocery store on I think Whittley Avenue, just off Crescent, so it’s easy to self-cater.
Many of the stores and restaurants are on Crescent, with a lot more nearby on the streets than run inland from it. The food is not very marvelous – fried everything, with a “salad” that is a chunk of iceberg lettuce. But you can eat it on a nice deck overhanging the water, with a cheerful old-salt type waiting on you, so it could be worse. There are a couple of restaurants with more up-to-date menus, but they’re very pricey. The shops are expensive and full of home decor gee-gaw-type stuff, although there are lots of inexpensive t-shirts to choose from.
It’s a fairly expensive place to go, but then SoCal is expensive overall. It’s not much worse than the nearby mainland prices. The weather is about the same as on the mainland – mostly sunny and warm, with a cool, rainy day in winter sometimes.
Island activities: there are several land tours to choose from. A nice piece of organisation is that they all leave from a shady, bench-having, clean-bathroom-having, plaza between Catalina and Sumner Avenues, just up from Crescent.
The island is criss-crossed with mostly-dirt roads. We took the 3.5 hour inland tour in a modified open-air Hummer (there’s also an old-timey enclosed bus). Most of the island is now a wildlife conservancy, with great effort being put into getting rid of destructive introduced species (sheep, goats and wild pigs are all gone now). Very bumpy, windy, cold, many roads with 10000000ft drop-off on one or both sides. Lots of fun, no, really. Great driver/guide, with lots to say about the island, its history and plants and critters. The tour goes up to the little airport with amazing views, and we saw bison and deer and a fox. Well worth doing. Since we were there in winter it was very green. In summer, it’s very brown. $80 per person. (The bison are left over from a movie shoot long ago; the herd is maintained because it’s sort of a thing now.) For a long time the whole island belonged to the Wrigley (yes, gum and baseball) family and some of their residences and stables can still be seen.
Back into town. The Green Pier, right beside the ferry terminal, is where you take almost all the water-based tours from. There’s a glass-bottomed boat. We did the touristy-but-fun semi-submersible for $27 each. About 45 minutes. It goes through the kelp forest just off the coast of the island. Many fish, including the brilliant orange-red garibaldi, a protected species.
The ocean side Casino (no gambling) is a big deal on the island. Decades ago it was a huge dance hall, big bands came to perform there, Hollywood stars went to dance there. These days it’s a large round building visible from all over town, with Art Deco details that I was too cheap to pay the $20 entry fee to see inside. There’s also a cinema in the building, with a current-release movie showing every night. In the basement is a small museum, $5. Mostly photographs of old Hollywood stars and the movies that were made on the island. The same photos appear other places all over the island, so you might want to spend the money on a nice refreshing beer instead.
Here is a comprehensive list of island tours.
Now for the personal coda of this article.
There’s a zipline on the island. It’s the biggest draw they have. $100 a head. Really smart to book ahead of time, even in winter (low season). Your author thought she’d sign up for it, to show her considerable fear of heights who was boss.
The tour starts from Descanso Beach. You show up, they put you in this complicated harness, give you your zipping instructions (arms straight as you hold on to the handles; legs spread out to slow down; legs tucked up to go fast and to land). Very well-organised, with personable guides. You HAVE to be wearing closed shoes, and they like if you wear long pants but will let you zip with just shorts.
So. Clutching your webbing harness so it falleth not off your ass, clutching also your own individual big steel… thing… that will hitch you to the zipline itself, we six, we happy? six, we band of zippers, plus our two trusty guides, hobble onto the bus.
It takes you way up high inland and up hill (hey! at last! a use for the damned hills!) to the first launch platform (the whole jaunt is composed of 5 sequential runs). The guides tell many lame jokes to jolly us all along, lest we be a wee tad bit nervous. Once we’re all on the platform, the first guide goes ahead to Platform #2 to await you. He is the catcher.
The other guide (the launcher) gets you hooked up via your steel thingy to the line, one at a time. She opens the safety gate and you line up your little toes on the edge of the very stoutly-made wooden platform. The pretty valley stretches out before you, looong and wiiide and deeeep. The drop from your toes to the earth immediately below is, oh, maybe 30ft. You “step out confidently”, as the guide says, into the air, then zooom you go about 800ft (other runs are longer) to the 2nd platform, where the catcher helps you land without breaking your ankle or barking your shins.
Unless you are me.
I came. I saw. I bailed.
I was all hooked up via the 5lb steel thingy. I had seen a couple of people go before me just fine. I had studied their technique and knew what I was supposed to do. I knew the line was rated for 5,000lb. (really). I had complete confidence in the equipment, and yet… as I went to “step out confidently” I. Just. Froze. I could not do it. The fear-of-heights slammed up what might as well have been an actual physical wall, right in front of my face. If the valley had been on fire and full of (fire-proof) snakes I could not have been more afraid.
I backed up, clutching the railing, heart pounding. The launch guide was great, she encouraged me to try again, but wasn’t pushy at all. I got unhooked, the others went, all stepping out confidently. She gave me one last offer to go, but no. I think I would have passed out.
I don’t feel any shame at having bailed, just regret at missing something that looked like fun.
The next bus load of maniacs zippers arrived soon, so I took the bus back down to the beach and the town and went and found myself a good stiff drink. The food isn’t great on the island, but they mix a mean martini.
