Pinch me! I still can't believe we are here anchored in Cat Harbor, Catalina! Left San Diego Monday afternoon at 3:00pm and arrived in Cat Harbor at break of dawn 5:30am...an all night passage, my first in over twenty years! We took turns taking watch with short cat naps in between. the winds were light 4-5 knots, so couldn't really sail. We did have the main reefed, just in case the winds increased over the night, it's much easier to deal with...but, motor-sailed for quite awhile. At one point, we had 10-11 knots of wind, so pulled up the genoa, turned off diesel and sailed along nicely. What an easy motion a sailing vessel has..slicing through the water! The night was dark. I was hoping for a beautiful moon lit night for my first passage, but no such luck! I felt a little queezy because I couldn't see the horizon to get my bearings...yucky feeling...good news was the autopilot worked like a charm allowing us to be off the helm. A big help! The chart plotter equipped with the AIS locator, identified all boats in our vicinity with course and speed. We saw several boats throughout the night. One huge cruise ship lit from bow to stern with carnival party lights. it looked like an alien space ship hovering over the black water...very strange not to see anything in the dark then suddenly this huge ball of lights floating past!
The night went by fairly fast. After 13 hours we saw the light beacon marking Santa Catalina Island near Jewfish point. Our destination to anchor up the west side in Cat Harbor arriving at light break.
There are about 15 other cruiser boats moored or anchored in this quiet bay. Some have already been somewhere and others are going south, too, eventually.
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