Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Yacht Regatta Finishes in Avalon Harbor

Dateline: Avalon, Catalina Island. What's great about living high on the hill on Catalina Island is that you get to observe what's happening below -in the town and harbor. Arthur calls it being "a spy in the sky." It's like being a voyeur in your own town; it's the ever constantly changing TV.

Mostly we sit out on the deck and watch the harbor. It's always fun to watch the harbor fill up for the weekend. This Saturday late afternoon there was a regatta finishing up just outside the harbor, near Casino Point. We watched a 35-40 foot red-hulled foot boat, which we later found out was called the Pendragon, coming in on a long port tack. From the corner of my eye I caught another boat (T N T) coming in from Lover's Cove, that tacked and headed toward the finish line also - also on a port tack. At the finish line, both boats were neck and neck toward the line. After watching Pendragon for 20 minutes on a beeline to the end, TNT snuck across the finish line just a boat length ahead of the Pendragon. I'm sure Pendragon wasn't happy. But as yachtees, I'm sure everything is forgiven at the bar afterwards.

About 15-20 boats continued coming in for the next 2 hours. Many boats came in with their colorful billowing spinnakers. Just beautiful to watch. The Marina del Rey Flyer boat arrived in Avalon just as the middle of the pack boats were finishing up and had to maneuver though them to get to the dock. As the sun set about 5:15pm over the Bay, there was little to no wind in the harbor but about 10 boats were still on their way to the harbor.

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Catalina Island Chronicles, daily life on the CA island