A circumnavigation of California’s Catalina Island

Robert Hess, Los Angeles, California

I have been planning to cross to Catalina Island off the Southern California coast by sailing kayak for quite some time. After two years of dreaming, planning, building, and testing, my plans finally came to fruition in June of this year. This is the story of my first crossing to - and my ensuing circumnavigation of - Catalina Island.

The Crossing

I arrived at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro at 7:00 a.m. on a balmy Sunday morning. The air was unusually warm for the time of day, the residual effect of a dissipating heat wave that had held Southern California in a stranglehold for the past week. Catalina Island lay in plain view, resting peacefully on the southern horizon.

With the call of the island loud and clear, I lost no time transferring my gear from my car to my twin-hatch Scupper Pro sit-on-top kayak. I closed the hatches about forty-five minutes later.

Every item had its designated place inside the hull, with sailing, diving and emergency gear as well as my tent and sleeping mat occupying the bow hatch for easy access, and with my personal gear, food and water residing in the stern hatch. The interior of the center tunnel held a spare sail and spare paddle. Velcroed to the top of the center tunnel sat a zippered bag holding my VHF radio, emergency flares, a dive knife, deck compass, waterproof disposable camera, a ziplock bag with lunch, and, most importantly, my SPOT tracker, a GPS-based communication device that would allow me, by the simple push of one button, to send pre-typed e-mail and text messages (so-called OK messages) to my wife at regular intervals when I was out of cell phone range. The 911-function of SPOT would also enable me to call help in case of an emergency. Strapped on top of the rear hatch inside a drybag was my sleeping bag. Another, small dry bag was stashed away in the day hatch between my legs, carrying my cell phone (inside another dry bag) and hat. I also stowed a weight vest for freediving (a more ergonomic alternative to a weight belt) in the space under my seat. All told, I carried at least 100 lbs. of gear (including about 40 lbs. of diving and sailing gear and at least five pounds of food that I didn't end up eating).

I should perhaps note that, being the low-tech kind of guy that I am, I did not carry a GPS nor do I own one. The basic problem I see with a GPS is that, with its many buttons and options, it would tend to distract me from what is really going on around me. As it is, I have built up a very intuitive working knowledge of where I am in this part of the ocean. This intuitive understanding has been confirmed many times over by everyday experience. I have come to trust this understanding, it's become part of me. For this understanding to work, I need to be completely in tune with my surroundings. I need to constantly register speed, time (without a watch), direction of travel, current, wind drift, swell direction, shifts in the weather, etc., by carefully observing my surroundings, including landmarks, buoys, the position of the sun, the sea state, cloud formation, and other factors. Constantly monitoring my course by squinting at the tiny little screen of a GPS between my legs would simply require too much attention on my part.

So much for my aversion to electronic gadgetry.

At 8:00 a.m. I said good-bye to my father-in-law, who had volunteered to drive my car back home for me, and set off towards Catalina Island. The trim of my kayak turned out to be perfect, with just the right amount of weight fore and aft. Though I had known all along that a 100 pounds of gear would feel different than the usual 40 or so pounds, reality still came as a bit of a surprise - the sucker was heavy!

But soon my body and mind had adjusted to the different load, and I gleefully paddled over glassy water with my bow pointed at the isthmus of the island. I could hardly believe that my big day had finally arrived. This time, I would not have to turn back half-way across, as had been my normal routine on most weekends for the past two years. That thought alone, the freedom of traveling across the ocean to a destination on the horizon, meant a lot to me.

Alas, my bliss was short-lived. About 30 minutes after I launched into sunny skies, thick fog rolled in from the southeast, reducing visibility to less than ¼ mile. The Catalina eddy, which the weather forecast had predicted not to develop until the next day, had arrived with a vengeance.

Great, I thought, I have hardly ever experienced fog like that before in 15 years, and today has to be the day. As the fog had just arrived, there was little chance of it lifting anytime soon. With two shipping lanes to cross at five to six miles, and eight to ten miles out, respectively, I reluctantly admitted to myself that I'd probably have to turn back and try again some other time. On the other hand, I had gotten up at 5 a.m., driven through most of L.A. to get to the launch site, and arduously loaded my kayak. So, I decided to make it sort of a dry run and continue on to just short of the first shipping lane before turning around.

I have to say, it was pretty eerie at first paddling through the gray gloom with just my compass for guidance. Once, a sea gull came into view from behind me, only to be swallowed again by the fog the next moment. Once or twice, I'd hear the bow slap of a small power boat somewhere in the distance, but other than that it was dead quiet. But at least the water was flat and calm, making for easy paddling.

When I approached the five-mile mark, just short of the first shipping lane, visibility had improved a bit with the sun occasionally peeking through. Encouraging, I thought. From past experience I knew that for whatever reason the first (outbound shipping lane) was not busy. On most days, I'd see no cargo ships at all in that lane, whereas I'd normally see at least three to five ships in the second, inbound lane.

Having come this far, I now resented the idea of turning back even more than before. Aside from the fog, conditions were perfect and I knew that the fog would likely dissipate with the arrival of the afternoon sea breeze, only a couple of hours away. On the other hand, I had to concede that there was no guarantee as to when and where the fog would lift. The fact that ships were blowing their horns in the inbound shipping lane eight to ten miles out told me that the fog bank spanned at least half the channel.

After some wavering, I decided to make a "security" radio call on channel, advising commercial traffic of my position and asking whether anyone was headed my way in the outbound shipping lane. No answer, of course.

Hmm, I thought, what does it mean? That no commercial traffic is nearby? Or that they can tell I am radio-incompetent and just don't bother answering? Or, maybe that the radio operator understands and speaks only Chinese?

In any event, I didn't place much reliance, if any, on the lack of a response and instead decided to trust my common sense, eyes and ears. And right now, all three were telling me that it was safe to proceed. So proceed I did.         END OF PART TWO

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