Saturday, Sept 11, 2am
We woke up to sounds we never heard at the Marriott Marina at 2:00 in the morning, fishermen cracking open energy drinks and talking loudly, getting ready to head out to sea in their fishing boats. We started getting ourselves ready too, putting on warm clothes, closing all the hatches and stowing (nautical term) anything that could rattle around or fall while underway.
We motored into the Bay, away from the lights of downtown and into complete darkness, following the red and green channel markers and trying not to collide into fishing boats or worse, Navy ships. It was a little jarring, leaving in the middle of the night- usually we leave in the late afternoon – but the payoff was awesome, a trip to Catalina during the day when the lights of other boats, ships, aircraft carriers and planes out of LAX aren’t confusing and distorted in the darkness.
In typical Molly/Adam passage-style, I went back to bed after we’d cleared the channel, and woke up when the sun was out and there was no land in sight.
The sky was pretty gray and the wind was up, but the water was relatively smooth. Adam went below to get some sleep and I took over watch, reading The Glass Castle and occasionally looking around for other boats and checking the GPS to make sure we were on track. Hours later Adam woke up, perhaps because I had decided to sit on his legs, and resumed his rightful place on watch. The winds and swell had picked up and we were 10 hours into the trip and couldn’t yet see the island, so I did what any smart 1st mate would do and went back to sleep. When I awoke two hours later Adam was soaking wet, as apparently the winds had picked up even more and spray was pounding the cockpit…and the captain. Eventually we got to Two Harbors, after a 15 hour motor, and happily took a mooring ball.
As luck would have it, my cousins Ezra and Sam and their lovely wives, Lily and Kate happened to be spending the weekend at Two Harbors on Ezra and Lily’s awesome Cal-29, Tumbleweed, and so they rowed over and we all had a great dinner together and a lovely breakfast the next morning.
After spending a good part of the day fighting off wasps who took a liking to our boat – I blame the nearby campsite – we decided to go to shore and walk across the isthmus to Cat Harbor, where we plan to take up residence in a couple of days. We saw two interesting things on our walk:
1) A buffalo, who was laying right beside the road who had wondered down from the hills.
2) Nadya Suleman, the Octomom, who was in the bathroom with a dozen small children. I recognized her immediately, her face and voice are completely recognizable if you followed the drama a few years back, and the dozen + kids also tipped me off.
Adam and Molly Go 