Un-Birthday-Palooza, Day 3: The Part With "Whale" Watching and an Island Visit.
At last! I get to go whale watching, and lay eyes on the mighty Blue Whale, the largest animal ever to grace our fine planet! Unfortunately, even though they chose to show up in significant numbers on every other whale watch cruise that week, they decided to totally blow off the one I was on. So now you know there will be no blue whale photos on in this picspam, so in case you were expecting some spectacular shot of 100-foot long whale leaping out of the water for the sheer joy of seeing me in person, then you can forget it, because it did not happen. I'm just telling you now so you don't have to wade through what follows looking for something that's not there.
So...Blue Whales and I are not speaking right now. I love them too much to ever entertain the kind of antipathy that I have for polar bears, but let's just say I'm not pleased with them at the moment.
So, my whale watching picspam will now proceed without any whales in it.
I left out of Newport Harbor. I have always left out of Long Beach before, and always seen whales when I did. However, I will probably continue leaving out of Newport Harbor, because Newport Beach is just a hell of a lot nicer than Long Beach, and I'm shallow like that.
The point of departure was the Balboa Pavilion, a nice Edwardian structure that is very charming and a whole lot less interesting that it could be. As you can see, the highly reflective blue surfaces of the Balboa Island Ferry signs are in excellent working order. This is as empty as I've ever seen it, probably because it's early on a Sunday morning. Normally it's choked with cars, confused tourists, and hipster types who want you to look at them.
Here is Newport Harbor, under a very heavy marine layer. The marine layer is your friend, especially in August, when normally it would already be about a million degrees by now.
Here is the boat I went out on: the Ocean Explorer. It's a nice boat, and it is staffed by nice, knowledgeable people. I must say I was more impressed with these folks than I was with the Newport Harbor Breakfast Cruise we took, in which the captain was seen to be downing a gin and tonic and steering with his feet. These people were on it. And the boat itself was pleasantly pokey. I wanted nothing to do with a channel crossing that took an hour. I wanted to make a day of it. It took 2 1/2 hours to cross each way, and that's the way I liked it! So, two thumbs up for the Ocean Explorer!
We proceeded out of the harbor, past the glorified sandbar that is Balboa Island. This little island is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country. It's a cute place, and you can take a 30 second ferry ride over there and walk around and take in the adorable and obscenely expensive houses. There are some nice summer rentals there...for $5,000 a week. Yeah, I know...WTF?
Examples of obscenely expensive Balboa Island homes.
On our way out, we saw a fishing boat coming back in surrounded by a cloud of seabirds all wanting a piece of the catch.
Out in the channel, where the Blue Whales should have been, we ran into a large, loud, and very playful school of Common Dolphin. There were hundreds of them, all around the boat. And it was quite something to see them.
Here's proof -- 2 full minutes of jittery Common Dolphin action, complete with deafening wind sounds, and a female passenger cackling throughout. Turn sound down...you've been warned!
After we passed through dolphin territory, it was straight on through to Catalina Island. I was about the only one I knew that had never been there, and when you're my age, and you're a Southern California native, it's kind of a shame and an embarrassment to not have been there yet.
Soon, the island itself appeared from out of the mist and the overcast...and it looks exactly like a big, broken off bit of Southern California dropped into the sea: rugged hillsides and cliffs covered with scrub oak, dry golden grass, and lots of rocks.
On very clear days, especially in winter, you can see Catalina from the mainland, and it would have been nice to approach it that way, and to be able to have seen the mainland from the island. That might have been kind of disorienting...like seeing the earth from the moon, or something.
Catalina Island through the haze.
The rugged island coastline.
Avalon is Catalina's only city. About 3,000 people live on the island, as well as almost as many golf carts (there are almost no cars), and a few hundred buffalo (descendants of a herd brought in to film a silent movie early in the last century).
This is the island's best-known landmark, The Casino. It was never a place to gamble, but has always been a music/movie venue. It's a beautiful building and supposedly quite spectacular inside, with gold leaf everywhere, and lots of very good murals, but I only had 90 minutes to explore. Maybe next time!
The water in the harbor must be relative clean because it's quite clear and full of bright orange Garibaldi. Also, there's the city beach is about 20 feet away, and the water is like crystal, so it can't be THAT filthy, can it?
Here is the beach. They've had to build a little terrace and dump sand on it to create more "beach" space, otherwise there'd be only about a 6 foot wide strip of sand to set your stuff on. You're looking at about 50% of the town right here. It's tiny, as if Disneyland decided to build a "1930s California Beach Town Land" or something. It's all scaled down very small, is very quaint, very clean, and very full of sleepy charm. I liked it a lot.
There's very little flat ground on the island, so most of the houses and buildings cling to the cliff faces.
One of the streets off of the promenade. Very quiet, and attractive, with old hotels, stores, a post office. There were a couple of very nice, clearly turn-of-the-last-century candy stores that had a very nice feel to them (and very good candy). The whole place has an air of being from another time that I liked very much.
Looking down to the end of the Pleasure Pier. There's nothing but food stalls here, and a few scuba rental places, and a place to gut your fish. I was envisioning sort of a mini-version of Palace Pier in Brighton or something like that. Or at least the Santa Monica Pier, with a little merry-go-round or something. That's the only improvement I'd make to the place -- tart up the Pleasure Pier. (By the way, the guys in the overly tight pants are a strolling mariachi band, in case you were wondering.)
A quick lunch, a stroll around town, and some souvenir shopping later, it was back on the boat to return home. Our friends the Common Dolphins were waiting for us:
These guys were really having a good time. That guy in the orange dinghy had a group racing him around and fighting to surf his bow wave. They may be common, by they are beautiful.
Is it possible to not feel joy when watching these guys doing their thing?
Back at the harbor, we are greeted by a buoy full of sea lions:
CLOSE UP!
One of them made the mistake of jumping off for a better spot, but immediately regretted it when his space disappeared and no one would let him back on the buoy. He bitched and moaned about it for a while, then swam over to the boat, and looked pleadingly at us with his big, soft sea lion eyes. Everybody went, "Ooooh poor baby!" The sea lions in this harbor are notoriously manipulative, and also rather irritating to boaters, as they congregate on people's docks and even in their boats when no one is looking.
Back to the Pavilion again, at the end of a whale-free but very beautiful day! I hope you have enjoyed your virtual whale (not) watch and trip to lovely Catalina island!