Second Wind Voyage: Catalina Island

Catalina Island: after hearing about it for years, here we are! The transit took 20 hours (starting with 30 knot winds and turbulent seas, and ending with no wind at all). This place really looks like a desert island to me; not the flat sandy image, but a huge folded rock with very little vegetation. No longer are we alone, or nearly so; but at the same time, it's encouraging to see so many people enjoying kayaking, snorkeling and hiking.

Inching our way back into civilization (not the "real world", but the other world), we enjoyed a mixture of shore time and simply soaking in the scenery from the boat. As much as I like green growing things, I especially enjoyed the terrain of towering multihued rock faces--oranges, white streaks, green and gray hues. There was much aesthetic pleasure in visually soaking in that landscape.

We walked around the quaint village of Two Harbors and the tourist mecca of Avalon, and feasted on freshly caught fish. Art pulled in 5 fish from 3 locations in 1 day (quite a return on his one-day fishing license!).

Most interesting experience: watching pelicans dive for fish in Catalina Harbor. As if they were choreographed, two or three at a time would fly up and around the end of the bay, then simultaneously dive like torpedoes into the water. After a large splash, they would be back on the surface and stretch their necks out to swallow their catch. Synchronized fishing: soar, bank, plummet, float, repeat; we watched them for ages.

Most unexpected experience: watching a group of middle school students get off the ferry with luggage and enthusiasm in equally large measures, I felt an immediate pang of connection. Seeing the eagerness in their faces made me miss teaching for the first time since we left. Pleasures abound in our current adventure, but I haven't forgotten the joy of being a tour guide in the realm of music with energetic students.

At our last anchorage on Catalina Island, we spent the morning exploring a beach unlike any we had seen before. Rather than sand or rounded monochromatic rocks, this one was covered with stones of all shapes and colors. It was a genuine kaleidoscope, endlessly fascinating. And as we rowed to and from shore, we saw more of the iridescent blue specks we had seen weeks before--and the same color sparkling up from shells on the bottom. We decided the color must simply be the blue of the water when light is refracted from the microorganisms and shells that reflect it.

There are marvels everywhere...