Single-handed Catalina Trip Log!!

Tuesday, February 20. I wake up knowing this day will be rough–rain, Ventura, and boat prep. Ignoring the vast amount of work I’d have to do, I got ready and prepared the cart worth of winches, anchors, gas cans, koozies, and various unused knick-knacks and loaded them into the squeaky trunk of our trusty, old minivan. Dad wakes up and gets ready, and we set off for Ventura.

We have a great drive, listening to my ‘Discovery Mix’ on Apple Music and calling my grandmother who you may remember, Elaine, about our annual walking trip in Southern France this summer. After about a thousand U-turns, we make it to Mike’s Consignment Marine but decide to assemble the winches before we head in. I impress myself with my winch-maintenance skills and end up in a very uncomfortable position between the third-row seats in the trunk! Surprisingly, Mike takes everything we have in our cart, and I look around for a bit. It’s hard for me to buy anything at consignment stores because it’s never exactly what I need, so I get a spool of 12awg wire which would be needed for my next project.

On our way back, we stop for lunch at the most delicious fish taco stand which, uniquely, has beer-battered zucchini in the style of a fish taco which somehow is the most DELICIOUS taco I’ve ever eaten. Dad takes a quick detour to walk our lovely golden retriever, Tofu, and we drive straight to the boat.

I take all of my belongings, bedding, and safety gear out of the car and, miraculously, it all fits in one cart! I quickly use my newly purchased wire to attach my new 12-volt outlet to battery #2 and get on with loading up my gear and mounting the new stern anchor I ordered from Sweden. Amid the chaotic loading, my dad has to go so we hug and he departs. Now, I’m all alone. I’ve sailed to Catalina many times, but never completely alone so I am worried about how this will turn out. I try my hardest to make all of the new items on the boat seaworthy and head to sleep early to make sure I’m not too exhausted on my long sail tomorrow!

Wednesday, February 21. I wake up at 0630 and quickly gather my shorts and hooded, UV-protected shirt, making me feel like a sailor (haha). I make my way to the marina showers and get myself ready for the day. Walking back to the boat, I think about the weekend earlier when I postponed the trip technically due to an oil stain on the cockpit that I couldn’t remove, but really I was just too stressed about whether I could handle the trip even though, to get my parents to allow me to go, I have to act as though this is super easy for me. And then my first problem arose.

“Hey, dad, yeah sorry to call you this early but I have a bit of an issue. I forgot my credit card.” My dad, the person he is, starts researching contactless-payment ATMs while I call the Two Harbors Harbor Department and the Del Rey Landing (the diesel pump) to ask if they take Apple Pay, both of which respond with a cheery yes. I walk to the Wells Fargo ATM that supposedly takes contactless, but of course, it is out of order so I just walk back and decide to just rely on my $50 of emergency cash kept onboard in the ditch bag.

My departure wasn’t a spectacle because despite going on this singlehanded trip and being at the boat every day for the past week, I hadn’t sailed for a while. After only minor embarrassment, I pull up to the fuel dock and fill up Drifter with $32 worth of diesel. I then motor out the channel and into the 4-foot-swells and 5 knots of wind.

The sail was supremely uneventful and I generally spent my time playing guitar, listening to Lin and Larry Pardey’s Taleisin’s Voyage to the South Pacific, and listening to my ambiance playlist of indie rock and 90s hip-hop. The engine starts revving on its own to ~4000rpm about 2 hours in when I am sailing with it idle, so I shut it off and sail the last 5 hours at around 4.5 knots with 8 knots of wind.

I make it in at 5 o’clock and, to my delight, moor on the first go-around. I inflate the dinghy but decide it isn’t worth getting to shore that night. Instead, I watch Grease and eat dried mango!

Thursday, February 22. Waking up all alone, having sailed 8 hours to a distant, tropical island is a feeling like no other. I leisurely wake and get my sneakers on to prepare for my hike and motor my trusty little dinghy to the dinghy dock. I walk to the visitor's center and see a couple of “recommended hikes” listed on the bulletin board. Hammocks Hike looks intriguing–2.5 “strenuous” miles with hammocks at the top and an incredible view. I walk up the normal Trans-Catalina Trail dirt road like I have for years and, through the mud, keep going back and forth on the trail trying to find the trailhead. Eventually, I see a slightly off-colored, 10-foot high rock ledge, and decide it must be the trail. Hiking up that VERY strenuous section, it seems like I’m on track based on the foggy photo and spotty reception I had. Many tick-near-misses later, I find a breathtaking view but….no hammocks?!?!? Walking down seems to be harder than going up, and I find myself sliding down the hill and continuously falling over with several unclear “paths” to choose from that all lead to different directions. Eventually, I make it to a bush-filled field, and I find the main road. I climb under a barbed-wire, rusty gate and turn around to see a sign saying Caution: Authorized Personal Only. All Others Keep Out. “Huh,” I think, and continue walking on. That sure was a strenuous hike, and probably not the one I intended to go on.

I dinghy back to the boat for only a quick stop of eating a couple of Cheerios and changing into my bathing suit. I motor Gerard (my dinghy) to Little Fisherman’s Cove where I enjoy the sandy beach and read some of Keplr’s Bookstore's Most Recommended Novel, The Penguins Who Saved Veronica.

It soon started getting dark, so I motor back to Drifter, bopping my head to some 90s hip-hop, and proceed to deflate the dinghy, watch a bit of my new show, Madam Secretary, and go to sleep.

Friday, February 23. The final day. Getting out of bed is somehow easy at 0600, and I brush my teeth, take off all the covers, and start the engine as quietly as I can. There isn’t supposed to be any wind today, so I decided just to leave as early as I got up. As I got out of the quiet Ithsmus Cove and could turn up the rpm’s on the diesel, I noticed about 3 knots of wind from the East and the normal 2-foot swells from the West. Weird. I see a dust cloud layer seemingly engulfing Long Beach, and I recall reading somewhere that it could be a sign of a Santa Ana storm. That gives me a bit of a scare, but the forecasts reassure me of a calm day–too calm–once again.

The rest of the sail is very easy and, to my disappointment, I never once turned off the engine to catch a breather. About 15 nautical miles into that passage, I always have a feeling that I’m not getting closer to my destination, but only farther from where I came from. This is always the highest point of boredom on my Catalina trips and, without wind, it becomes very dull.

Thankfully, I make it into the harbor at a very early 1400 and unpack everything from the boat with generous help from my dad. Later that day, I cleaned up all of my Catalina belongings from our dining table leaving no sign of my trip, slipping away that last candy bar just as my mom arrives from her ski trip.