^{Catalina Island -
              DeFever Rendezvous
    7-23-2002}

Our next excursion took us out for a week to Catalina Island for the DeFever Rendezvous.  The Rendezvous is 3 days at Catalina Harbor, but we planed a couple days in Avalon prior to moving up to Cat Harbor.  Arthur DeFever has designed many Trawler Yachts, some custom as large as 200ft, with literally thousands in the 40-70ft range cruising the world today. This Rendezvous is a get together of the West Coast group of DeFever Cruisers club which we just recently joined. We have been looking forward to our first encounter with other boaters both with a boat like ours, as well as experiences on cruises like that which we plan to attempt through the Panama Canal..

We  left Peter's Landing, Huntington Beach,  on 7/23 at 7:45 am and arrived at Avalon Harbor at 11:20 am. The trip across the 27 miles was uneventful and pleasant, calm and 1-2 foot swells at 9 seconds and clear. The Naiad stabilizers were just fixed, a low voltage problem to the controller, and Wow, do they smooth out the ride! Even with calm seas they improve the ride. When we were looking at the boat for purchase, the Naiads did make our interest in this Alaskan even higher, and we find that it was definitely justified.  I'm sure we will find weather in which they just will not get the job done, but for now, we pick our weather and the Naiad's really make it comfortable.

We  spent two very pleasant days in our "Local Riviera" resort of Avalon just taking in the sun, the atmosphere, the food and shopping, and just relaxing. I did notice quite a few young women wearing thongs, but I didn't look, too much.

Although Cottonwood's 30 net ton displacement makes her sit quietly in harbor compared to our last light weight 29ft Bayliner, late in the afternoon the wind picked up, swells came into harbor and we did experience considerable rolling on the mooring. With this larger boat the assigned mooring is farther out in the harbor and we do get more of the ocean's wave effect. Looking out at the other larger boats I found they were also rolling.  I have done some research on roll inhibitors and vowed to follow through with adding something to Cottonwood. Not surprisingly, at the Rendezvous at Catalina Harbor two days later, we found someone with just the ticket. They were anti-roll fish made by Magma. They are available at West Marine for about $200 a pair.  Because we already have two dinghy cranes mid ships for our dinghy and other toys, it will be easy to deploy these fish to stabilize our boat at anchor (or at mooring). I must put this on my To-Do List.

We left Avalon for Catalina Harbor Thursday, the 25th and headed up the backside of the Island where Cat Harbor is located on the opposite side of  Isthmus Harbor for which comes the reference to these two as "Two Harbors".

We enjoyed a great many discussions with fellow Defeverites, as well as a few with Defever Wanabees. We got to see many different boats, including Art DeFevers's 60 foot Grand Alaskan, see picture on the right.  Lynn was concentrating on the decors, me on the engine rooms mostly.

It's hard to believe we are amongst all these interesting people with stories of adventure and sharing our own. It is so enjoyable and if we decided to live this life full time would actually cost less than maintaining a home on shore. And we could go anywhere in the world we want to go, and invite friends and relatives to join our adventures.

Well, I guess it is not for everyone.  But so far we are really enjoying it and each other's company.

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~ Trip Pics ~


                    "Cottonwood" 
 
               Catalina Island, backside


                       Cottonwood Beach

                         Little Harbor
 

                    Cat Harbor - Approach