Catalina Island!

Yesterday we went to Catalina Island (without the kids!) to celebrate our 15th anniversary. We really enjoyed learning more about the island and exploring the area. Above we are in front of one of the harbors.

This is the big landmark, the Casino, which, in fact, is NOT a casino as we typically think of one. It houses a movie theater and a ballroom but there is no gambling (and there never has been). Apparently they use the word "casino" in its proper sense. But, don't worry, we found lots of other ways to waste our money. We went parasailing but I did a whole separate blog entry on that because it was soooooo awesome. We also rented bikes and saw some of the island that way. There are a very limited number of cars on the island and most people rent golf carts to get around. That is even how most of the locals get around.

There used to be a Catalina pottery company on the island so there's lots of cool ceramic work all around. This fountain was really cool.

Ken and I rented snorkel gear and went snorkelling in this area, referred to as Lover's Cove. We saw LOTS of beautiful colorful fish. The fish come right up to you as they are used to being fed by the swimmers. There are also glass bottom boats and semi-submersible submarines that people pay to ride on and that also spit out fish food. So, basically, this cove is swarming with fish.

We took a 1 hour tour around certain areas of the island and we saw this house which was formerly 2 boats which someone put together and turned into a house. Below is a picture of what most of the city streets look like.

Below is a picture of the Catalina Express, the boat that we rode over to the island. It was about a one hour trip each way. We got on the island around noon and left on the 8pm boat.

This is a picture I took from our tour bus. The island is 88% conserved, meaning that 88% of the island can never be built on and must be left wild. There is only a population of 4,000 on the island. Mr. Wrigley (of the chewing gum and also former owner of the Chicago Cubs) owned the island at one time and his descendants have made the conservancy rules.

Here is a model of the so-called casino building.

More views of the harbor. Basically, you can do just about anything here: fishing, rent a paddle boat, kayak, motor boat, parasailing, swimming, etc.

There is a lot of wildlife on the island. We saw this deer and there are also bison and bald eagles but we didn't see those.

We had lunch on the beach. You can see the beach bar right behind us and servers came on to the beach to take drink orders.

Well, that's our trip in a nutshell. We had a really fabulous time! It was a great way to celebrate 15 awesome years together!

We finished off the day with an awesome seafood dinner. Ken got the Australian lobster (which, in my opinion, isn't as good as Maine lobsters but Maine lobsters aren't available in southern California) and I had a bowl of steamers.

We left from Los Angeles Harbor which is really a very industrial harbor. There are loads of these crazy looking cranes that load and unload cargo from ships.

This picture was taken from the boat with Catalina Island in the background. It was a perfect day, typical for life here in So Cal.