Catalina Island

[wpcv1776]

Not many Albins in Southern California, but we do notice one or two every time we go to Catalina Island. This is a great looking pair moored at Avalon harbor.

[DesertAlbin736]

If we weren't doing Desolation Sound this summer we'd be going to Catalina from Dana Point after July 4th. I've sailed there twice before, once in 2003 sailing from Marina Del Rey in a Montgomery 15 sailboat, and again in 2012 in a Catalina 25 after harbor hopping up the coast from Chula Vista on San Diego Bay to Cabrillo marina in San Pedro and thence to Two Harbors and Avalon. It's a fun destination. Avalon was a lot more crowded the last time we went than your photo looks.

Our wing keel Catalina 25 "Orinoco Flow" in Avalon, July 2012.

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Since we kept our boat in CYM marina in Chula Vista that summer, which is owned by the same company that runs Cabrillo in San Pedro, we were able to get a free guest slip in Cabrillo, so we stayed there all through 4th of July week before heading over to Two Harbors. These slip neighbors with a Bertram 34 came back from deep sea fishing offshore one day with this load of sea bass. They gave us a pound or so of filets. Boy was that tasty!

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The San Juans in Washington and Gulf Islands in British Columbia where we're heading this summer is as if you had an island like Catalina, only forested with Sitka spruce trees, uncrowded anchorages with good holding and no need to jam so many boats moored bow and stern so close together, and there were two towns of similar size as Avalon (Friday Harbor and Roche Harbor on San Juan Island) and dozens of other anchorages on dozens of other islands all with 10 or 15 miles of each other in the sheltered waters of the Salish Sea.

Here's AOG members' Albin TE's "Blue Heron" and "Reel Flyer" at the 2014 Pacific NW AOG Rendezous that we attended at Roche Harbor on San Juan Island.

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[catalina_mike]

The 4th in Avalon is crazy busy. You would have to get there days ahead to not get booted. We are in Dana and have taken the boat over 3 times over the last year of ownership. I always have a side tie fallback with the dive boat in the harbor but we don't go on the 4th we rent out our condo. Greedy capitalist that I am. Big money weekend!

[DesertAlbin736]

Our sailing club puts together an annual caravan of trailer sailors taking their boats from Phoenix to Marina Del Rey most summers, traditionally starting the Monday after the 4th when the crowds have died down a bit. After all, you can't reserve moorings and it's a tough place to anchor. Most are 25 footers or less and can go on the string line in Two Harbors. They like MDR because of vehicle parking arrangements and the fact that even though it's 10 NM farther from MDR to Two Harbors than from San Pedro, it's a 180* compass heading which affords a good beam reach for rag baggers.

Most of us like Two Harbors better anyway. We put together a beach party/BBQ while there. All the sailboats shown here on the string line at Two Harbors plus the C-Dory 22 were from Arizona's Lake Pleasant Sailing club in 2012. Our Catalina 25 is 3rd boat from left. The O'Day with green sheer stripe that's between us and the blue hulled sport fisher are the same friends that are going up to Bellingham this summer and cruising with us to Desolation Sound. That's the beauty of trailerables, you can go anywhere that your free time allows. The boats were a Aquarius 23, two Catalina 250's our C25, an O'Day 25 an C-Dory 22 plus another crew of 8 that chartered a 40 ft sailboat out of MDR. The C-Dory folks have since sold their 22 and bought a C-Dory 25.

The cost of a splitting a 7 day bareboat charter with one or two other couples is roughly equal to cost of truck fuel to drive our boat up to Bellingham and cruise for as long as we like. We were 23 days afloat on that last Catalina cruise, leaving CYM Chula Vista marina to spend a night at Southwestern YC on Shelter Island, a night at anchor in Mission Bay, 2 nights each in Oceanside & Dana Point, a night on a mooring in Newport Beach harbor, and 5 nights in Cabrilo marina in San Pedro before making the run to Two Harbors. Then 2 nights in Two Harbors and 4 nights in Avalon before running straight from Avalon to Dana Point. We then spent 1 night in Dana, 1 night in Oceanside, and the last day made 50 NM under sail all the way back from Oceanside to Chula Vista.

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[DesertAlbin736]

We are in Dana and have taken the boat over 3 times over the last year of ownership.

We really liked Dana Point, one of our favorite stops on that cruise, kind of a toss up between there and Oceanside. Considering their excellent ramp and dry storage facilities, the next time we go to Catalina if ever it'll be from Dana Point. Do you happen belong to either of the yacht clubs, Dana Point YC or Dana West YC? Back in 2012 when we did our harbor hop, the Chula Vista Yacht Club which is right by the CYM marina where we kept our boat that summer, was trying to attract new members and had waived their usual $900 initiation fee. Monthly dues were $50 and the marina was giving a $50 a month discount to club members. So it cost us nothing to join. But it did gain us reciprocal privileges all up and down the coast. So when we got to Dana Point we docked for free in a guest slip at Dana West YC. And as we did at Southwestern YC in San Diego and Oceanside we patronized the club restaurants. That's partly why we spent two nights each at Oceanside and Dana. We'd pull in to the harbors around 1 or 2 PM, spend the rest of the afternoon and the whole next day relaxing and walking into town, then leave the next morning for the next stop. After that trip we resigned our membership with Chula Vista YC and haven't been back to San Diego or Dana Point since.

We sold the sailboat in 2013 and were boatless for a year before purchasing our Albin in 2014. We like sailing, but stepping and un-stepping the mast for out of town trips was getting to be too much. So an Albin 25 pocket trawler seemed like the logical next step. Except for sailboats, no other comparable trailerable boat of this size gets the kind of fuel economy that an A25 gets, not even pocket trawler/tugs like Rangers or Nordics. Not to mention purchase price too. Since then we've logged a total of close to 700 nautical miles on the water, including the San Juans & Gulf Islands, the Erie Canal in NY, Block Island Sound in CT & RI, and Chesapeake Bay.

Dana was one of the few places where we didn't take any pictures, except this one offshore on the approach to the harbor.

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Our sailboat docked at Oceanside YC

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Our A25 on Lake Pleasant in Arizona

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[wpcv1776]

Damn! I thought everybody on this site was from the east coast or northwest. I guess I finally woke up the southwest crown

[DesertAlbin736]

I think I'm about it in the Southwest, except for another A25 owner in Denver.