12.24.2012 9:08 PST 58F

This is actually our third Christmas at Catalina Islands. First time was in 2007, we chartered a Beneteau 10R (32ft), “Arrow”, from Long Beach. We had so much fun, and decided to bring our previous sailboat, Blue Moon, down here. We sailed Blue Moon to Channel Islands the next year and brought it over the Catalina on Christmas Eve in 2009. One side effect of that whole California offshore trip: the passage was brutal on our 40ft sailboat, and we decided we needed something else for our cruising dream. Well, here we are, on a Nordhavn 62 for our third Christams at Catalina, on our way to Australia. All very logical. 🙂

Being the third time at Catalina, this is actually the first time we moored at the Isthmus. We love it. Some infrastructure (thanks to the FAST wifi from the USC marine center across the bay), but still very quiet and peaceful –- 5-6 boats even on the Christmas holiday weekend, although it’d be a completely different story in the summer. We went on a hike yesterday, and took some beautiful shots of the Two Harbor

Christmas holiday “crowd” GrayMatter sits on the outer H4 buoy Have the bay all to ourselves. Breakfast time at the Isthmus. Tropic theme at the Isthmus.

One grocery store. One restaurant. The Isthmus Burrito. Isthmus residence. A bocce ball court at the nearby 4th of July Yacht Club. We had some fun at the Tennis court. [google-map-v3 width=”350″ height=”350″ zoom=”7″ maptype=”satellite” mapalign=”center” directionhint=”false” language=”default” poweredby=”false” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”true” scrollwheelcontrol=”false” draggable=”true” tiltfourtyfive=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkerlist=”33.445,-118.497{}cruiseship.png” bubbleautopan=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]