Catalina Chronicles pt 1

Nothing like a change of plans at 7am

2/9/2016
Catalina Island, California
 
It was cold and foggy in the pre-dawn morning as we headed to the Southern California Marine Institute in San Pedro, California. Between lab mates Genoa Sullaway, Tristin McHugh and myself we had enough field gear and food to fill two cars; the three of us were headed to Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles for part of Genoa’s thesis. For the next four days we would be diving out of the Wrigley Institute of Environmental Sciences, USC’s field station. However, before we could start diving, we had to first get to the island.

Four days worth of field gear. Thankfully Wrigley has SCUBA cylinders!

As we drove towards San Pedro we were informed that the Miss Christy, Wrigley’s small ferry, couldn’t operate in the channel between the mainland and Catalina due to the thick, persistent fog. As a grey dawn broke we started scrambling for solutions. We only had a limited number of days at Wrigley before we had to get back to San Diego and graduate school obligations. As it turns out, the commercial ferry operator, Catalina Express, doesn’t run between San Pedro and Two Harbors, the small “town” near Wrigley, on Thursdays. They do, however, operate between the Port of Long Beach and Avalon, Catalina’s little town. With minutes to spare we got to Long Beach, unloaded all of our gear (seven large totes, six chambers and personal gear), parked the cars in San Pedro and then loaded all of our gear on the Catalina Express just before it departed for Avalon.
 
As we steamed across the channel Genoa ran logistics, trying to figure out how we were going to get from Avalon to the field station. Thankfully Wrigley had sent a van to Avalon to pick up another stranded passenger; we caught the driver just in time to load all of our gear, once more, into the van. An hour later, over muddy roads and running creeks, we made it to the field station. Just before the sun set all of Genoa’s chambers were in the water, we made it!
 

After a long morning we were finally underway!

The view from the mountain road between Avalon and Wrigley. Under all that fog is the Pacific Ocean

Although we hit several roadblocks, no one lost faith that we would get to the island before it was too late. There’s never a dull day in the field, it’s what keeps us coming back for more. Thanks to the crew of the Catalina Express for putting up with us and all of our gear.
 
Stay tuned for more updates about our underwater adventures on Catalina!
 
Cheers,
 
-Baron von Urchin

No rest for the weary; it's dive time!