Cruising World – August 2019

the coast, fi nding somewhere to drop

anchor became more of a challenge.

San Diego and the bays of the Channel

Islands are the only natural harbors in

Southern California. Many ports have an

anchorage area behind a breakwater, but

anchoring in these zones is often limited

to a maximum stay of 72 hours. These

areas are patrolled by harbor police who

seemed bent on steering us into marinas

like sheep into a fold. As an alternative,

many yacht clubs in North America

have a brilliant system of reciprocity, of

which we took advantage. They offer a

few days of free moorage and hospitality

to cruisers visiting from other clubs, and

this provides a great solution to cruising

without mounting up huge marina bills.

The strong northwest winds that whistle

around Point Conception and the western

Channel Islands in the summer months

tend to die out once they reach the Santa

Monica Basin. We recrossed the Santa

Barbara Channel from Santa Cruz Island

to Ventura, motor-sailing in light airs, and

tied up at the Ventura Yacht Club. We re-

ceived a hearty welcome at the club and an

invitation to join in a potluck dinner at the

clubhouse that evening. We had a fi ne time

chatting with the locals, listening to a few

yarns, and gaining a bit of local knowledge

about favorite spots.

We were warned that Point Dume

is another headland with a ruthless

reputation. The Pacifi c swells pound

through the gaps between the Channel

Islands and wrap around Point Dume,

making the anchorage at Paradise Cove

just behind the point untenable except in

the calmest seas. We struck it lucky again

with surprisingly serene conditions and

spent two fantastic days anchored there.

Snorkeling at the point with a couple

dozen sea lions was an unforgettable

experience. They circled playfully around

us and were very curious, often swooping

up for a closer look. Their bodies, which

seem so cumbersome on land, were lithe

and graceful underwater.

The Malibu shoreline between Paradise

Cove and Santa Monica is home to some

of the hottest real estate in the world;

stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack

Nicholson and Ellen DeGeneres keep the

prices sizzling. As we sailed around the

bay to Marina del Rey, we enjoyed gawk-

ing through binoculars at the luxurious

beach houses and sumptuous palaces in

the hills above.

At Marina del Rey, a roadstead anchor-

age lies close to the entrance channel,

however the outer breakwater provides

little shelter from the swell, and anchoring

there can be pretty rough. Instead we tied

up inside the harbor for a few days, fi rst

courtesy of the Del Rey Yacht Club and

then the California Yacht Club; we were

beginning to get the hang of the reciprocal

system. Marina del Rey is just south of

Venice Beach and Santa Monica, and is an

ideal place to leave the boat for a visit to

Hollywood and Beverly Hills. We bought

a 48-hour hop-on/hop-off bus ticket,

climbed up to the open-air top deck, and

gorged ourselves on Hollywood craziness.

SAN PEDRO BAY AND

CATALINA ISLAND

It is a short hop down the coast from

Marina del Rey to San Pedro, where Dana

noted, “There was no sign of a town,

not even a house to be seen.” Incredible!

Nowadays it has been engulfed by the

Los Angeles sprawl. The dock area of San

Pedro and neighboring Long Beach is

enormous, channeling vast quantities of

imported goods into the United States.

The harbor in San Pedro has an extensive

complex of marinas, but a small corner

behind the breakwater has been allocated

for anchoring. We dropped the pick there

and soon had a visit from the harbor

police, who generously gave us a permit to

stay for two weeks. This gave us plenty of

opportunity to explore the area and share

some good times with cruising friends

who are based there.

Dana reported that the “rascally hole

of San Pedro” (love that description) was

unsafe during the violent northeasterly

winds that blow out of the desert in

fall and winter. These hot, dusty winds

are known as Santa Anas, and the west

coast of Catalina Island is a great place

to shelter from them. It is also a favorite

place for Angelinos to unwind on the

weekend and, as a consequence, the

most popular bays are full of moorings.

However, cruising boats can usually fi nd

room on the fringes and in the deeper

water to drop the hook. We anchored in

Catalina Harbor on the west coast and

walked across the isthmus to the small

community of Two Harbors, which lies

on the east side of the island. The red

dust and eucalyptus trees reminded us of

northern Australia. We propped up the

bar in Harbor Reef Restaurant, sipped a

couple of icy cold beers, and enjoyed the

casual and easygoing pace of island life in

the low season.

Little Harbor lies south of Catalina

Harbor on the west coast. It has no set-

tlement—just a couple of empty beaches,

a campsite, and a dirt road connecting it

to the rest of the island. In the evening,

we went ashore to use the showers, and

as we were soaping up, we were startled

to see two bison grazing among the palm

trees. It was astonishing to see these pri-

meval beasts on a small island just off the

Southern California coast. Apparently, 14

bison were brought to the island in 1924

to be extras in a fi lm called The Vanishing

American. When the fi lming fi nished, so

did the money to transport them back to

the Great Plains (or so the story goes), but

they seem to be thriving in their exile.

The Oil Islands provides another

surreal anchoring experience. These

are man-made islands that lie off Long

Beach Harbor and were constructed in

order to develop the Wilmington oil fi eld

that underlies San Pedro Bay. The good

people of Long Beach liked the money

but didn’t like the view of ugly production

platforms. So islands with palm trees were

built around them, and fake apartment

buildings were erected to disguise the

unsightly drilling derricks. Although

anchoring is allowed behind White Island

only on weekends, the Oil Islands offers a

bizarre alternative to tying up in a marina.

DANA POINT AND SAN DIEGO

After a couple of weeks of happy gunk-

holing in San Pedro Bay, we departed for

San Diego, the last leg of our California

cruise. A light wind was blowing from

the southeast, and we tacked laboriously

between container ships and the Oil

Islands. We passed Newport Beach, where

the coastline begins to rise and high cliffs

replace the famous sunbaked Californian

beaches. After a hard day of tacking,

we reached Dana Point and decided to

call it a day, hoping for better wind in the

morning. The bay at Dana Point

is protected by a long breakwater and is

almost completely full of marina berths.

There is a small anchoring area behind the

breakwater, but we enjoyed a reciprocal

CALIFORNIA

San Diego

San Francisco

Los Angeles

Santa

Catalina

Santa

Cruz Anacapa

Island

Point Sur

Point

Conception

Santa B

Chanarbara

nel

San Francisco Bay

Monterey

Bay

Half Moon Bay

Morro

Bay

Dana Point

C

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nn

el

Isl

an

ds

Newport Beach

Santa

Monica

Santa Cruz

Santa Barbara

Monterey

Ventura

Malibu

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