We had a great trip! We made new friends Dan, Gretchen and their two children and hung out on Catalina Island for 3 days. What could be better? Thanks Dan for taking us to the reef and to shore. Hopefully we'll see you guys again soon.
Written by Brian:
This report is from our first Catalina Island trip with our 19 foot boat, June 18 – 22.
Day 1 - Nikki and I left Napa CA Thursday morning to trailer our boat to Long Beach for a 3 night Catalina trip over at 2 Harbors. All went well and the drive down was fine except the LA traffic. We got into Long Beach Thursday night and spent the night in a hotel before crossing over to Catalina in the morning.
Day 2 – We get up and out of our great Super 8 motel accommodations by about 6 AM and headed down to Davies boat ramp in Long Beach. We got all the gear loaded and the boat launched by about 8:30 AM and by 9:00 AM we are heading out the breakwater and setting a course for 2 Harbors. Weather was overcast and a light wind with 2 – 3 foot swells so we were able to keep a good speed of about 21mph on the crossing. Half way across the channel we can see the island, this is good. After the crossing we headed over to a cove around Indian Rock and started diving a kelp bed in the area. Water temp was 64 deg the whole trip, and the vis was a good 35 to 40 feet this first dive site. Nikki and I dove for about 3 hours at this site. No fish taken but lots of life out, small barracuda, sheephead, and calicos. All the legal calicos would not have any of the spear gun but the diving was great and Nikki and I were having a great time. Just as we were wrapping up and swimming back to the boat, 3 white sea bass swim by not even flinching, they were all just a bit short of 28 inches but great to see then for my first time. We packed it in to go back and get a spot at 2 Harbors.
Day 3- We get up and out early, and I had Nikki drop me at ship rock for a little live boat diving. I dove ship rock for about 1 hour, vis was a good 60 plus feet with lots of bait and a good current but no yellow tail to be spotted. Hopped back in the boat and we headed south a bit to Yellow Tail point to find a dive site that we both could dive. We hooked up at yellow tail point and vis was a good 25 -30 feet and bait all over. We dove in and out of this bait ball all afternoon. Barracuda, small calicos, bat rays, lobster, but not yellow tail. At times the bait ball would just encircle us as we made drops into it just looking for some fish to strike at all this bait. Well nothing. After being fishless yesterday I shot a sheephead that we prepped for ceviche and got marinating in some lime, salt and pepper for dinner. Top side weather could have been better, as it was overcast with a bit a light drizzle all day. By 2:30 we pulled anchor and headed back to 2 Harbors to get tied up and have a beer. Got the rest of the ceviche ready and had quesadillas, ceviche, and margaritas for dinner.
Day 4- Up and out of 2 harbors and started looking for a dive site. The sun was out but the swell was up and the wind was picking up so most all the sights on the west end had a great deal of surge. Ended up going back to Yellow Tail point but the vis was only about 15 feet now and I spent a few hours bottom hunting and pocking around looking for a calico. No luck so after it looked like the wind was picking up pretty good we pulled anchor and headed back up to 2 Harbors. Got some lunch on the island, walked over to the other side of the island and then jumped in for some diving in and around the harbors east wall. Low vis but a fun little reef dive. After Nikki and I were in the water for about an hour the owner of the boat next to us pulled up in his 13 foot Boston whaler skiff and offered to take us out to harbor reef so we could leave our boat tied up. We did some live boat diving at harbor reef for about and hour. The vis was a good 35 plus feet and lots of Calicos out. I figured this was it I was going to get my first calico here. I made a few drops and then as I was breathing up on the surface I spotted something that looked like the outline of a huge shark, I cut the breath up and dropped down 15 feet to see my first giant black sea bass. This thing was HUGE, just trolling the reef. After slowing my heart back down I went back to looking for that calico. Spotted a nice one from the surface so I dropped down behind a kelp stalk and lined up on him before he saw me and let the spear fly. Got a good shot on the fish and we now had a 2.5lb calico for dinner. Jumped back into our new friends Boston whaler and headed back to 2 harbors to get the grill going as it was 6:00 PM now. We had fresh calico on the grill for dinner, a last margarita and cleaned up the boat for and early 6:00 AM crossing over back to main land.
Day 5 – Up at 5:30 AM and left 2 Harbors by 6 AM for the crossing back to Long Beach. Headed out with little wind and by 1/3 of the way across the channel we were in a good 3 -4 foot swell with some 5 footers here and there. The nice part was the swell was at our back corner so with a little fancy wheel work we were able to hold about 25 mph for a quick trip back to Davies ramp. Got the boat loaded up on the trailer and headed out of Long Beach by about 9:00 Am for the 450 mile drive back to Napa Ca. All in all it was a great trip and we plan to go back soon. Would have liked to gotten a few more fish but we did not go hungry so all was well. 2 Harbors is an awesome place to spend a few days. Thanks for sticking it out to the end of this report.
