December 30, 2003
A Little Something Extra In Your Stocking
Never have I experienced such a boat ride before. I actually rushed to the port at Long Beach the day after Christmas to get on the worst ride of my life. The catamaran was 55 minutes late in leaving for Catalina because of the small boat advisories and the previous slower channel crossings. I was on the forth or fifth trip after several boats had been cancelled on Christmas day because of the storm. It was all clear this day except for the high winds and the swells were incredibly high. As the crew handed out plastic garbage bags and half the passengers were up-chucking, I half expected to see George Clooney and Mark Walberg sloshing around in the stream of water coming down the aisle. Well, I thankfully took a Dramamine before the trip and stayed focused on the horizon Đ when you could see it. Sometimes the boat was so horizontal, all you could see was sky. Except for smelling the garbage nearby, I was safe from contributing to it myself. At least during the passage. Maybe it was a delayed reaction but I had to run to the bathroom in the middle of the night and I was fragile and dizzy the whole next day.
Several of my friends from my Illinois hometown met in Avalon for the holiday getaway. My girlfriend Lisa had her three kids with her (they were on the passage two boats before me and two of the kids got sick) and two of her sisters. In all, our wonderful friend Barb hosted seven of us. Despite the tenuous belly and fuzzy head, the first day and a half was full of laughs, card playing and short walks through Avalon, including a gift of massage from Barb, the greatest masseuse in the West. (Just ask Bruce Springsteen.)
On Sunday the winds died down, and the sun was high. After baked apples and oatmeal we geared up and set out for a hike. The kids and their mom and one aunt made it up to the botanical gardens and Wrigley Memorial while Barb, Maggie and I kept going on up the trail to the top of the peak.
Once we got to the crossroads at the top, I was intending to separate and go down the Gulch trail while they turned the other way to go to Little Lone Tree. We were telling Maggie about the trails and pointing out the Stagecoach road which is about a nine mile hike from start to finish, but that the Gulch cuts that in half. Since my return boat was that evening, I wanted to get back in due time and not strain my sorry ass. Somehow, perhaps through selective listening, Barb tells me that going the other way around, and bypassing Little Lone Tree was a only a short distance further than the way I was intending to go. Not wanting to miss out on our trail talk, I said, sure, I can do that, letŐs do it. Well, after a couple miles and steep hills, I remembered doing that hike once before and I said, Barb, is there a short cut, or does this only end up at the end, and were you talking about it being a little longer than the Gulch or Stagecoach trailÉ Well, suffice it to say, that once again, BarbŐs Bootcamp had finagled us into a 4 1/2 hour, 10 1/12 mile hike up and down and around that island.
We were aching and thirsty and starving when we finally returned. We had just enough time to scarf some munchables, slug down a beer, ditch the kids at the arcade and say our goodbyes at the Marlin Club.
Talk around the town of Avalon all week was and will no doubt be for some time to come about the sickening swells and surviving the crossings at Christmas time. Thankfully, the boat ride back was so calm it was like being on a lake. I imagine lots of people will never go back to Catalina because of their experience. More room for me Đ just that next time I will watch the reports and maybe postpone accordingly.
Posted by nora murphy at December 30, 2003 11:55 AM | TrackBack|