Catalina

I finally got my Catalina pictures developed and scanned into the computer. Man, having a digital camera with me is so much easier than film. But, anyhow, here they are!

Aunt Elaine, Mandy and me when we first got to the island.

The Catalina Express. We took this boat from Long Island to Catalina. It was about an hour trip and pretty expensive. But, I think it's definitely worth it to go at least once while we live here! It was beautiful!!! And not very rocky at all. There are some seats on the top deck out in the sun, and that's where we rode, it was very nice.

It's a really neat little island. All of the houses are built into the hillside. There are some cars there, but not very many at all. Most people just have golf carts to drive around or they walk. When we first got there, the first thing we saw was a booth to go parasailing. Heck ya! We signed up for a time later in the day and then went on to see the rest of the island. There are a ton of cool little shops to look at.

That's me and Mandy parasailing. It was a really windy day, so they had us go up two at a time. It was a blast! That picture is us at the end when they're reeling us in. The rope extends 500 feet out. It was really beautiful, and not scary at all. At the end, they let you down slowly and let your feet touch the water a little bit as you come in. You can opt to do a wet landing or a dry landing. We did a dry landing ... I'm scared of sharks out in the ocean. You can see how far out we were from the island in the picture. Yikes!

After the parasailing, we went on a glass bottom boat tour. The coolest thing about it was all of the plant growth underwater. I had never really thought about how it looked at the bottom of the ocean, besides seaweed and sand, but way down deep it's like a beautiful tropical forest. We did see some cool fish, but the plants were my favorite. It was hard to get a picture though. This was the best one I had on my little disposable camera.

At the end of the day, we rented a golf cart and drove all around the island. There are a ton of roads that lead to scenic points where you have some great views. It was a blast. Those things go maybe 10 miles an hour. But, we had fun with it. :)

One of the look-out points on the golf cart. Not a very good shot, but ... you get the idea. If you look closely, you can see all of the boats tied up down in the water. My boss at work owns a yacht and he said that to buy a place to park your boat at Catalina, it's $200,000. Just for the space, then you have to buy your boat! Wow.

This picture kind of gives you an idea of what the houses look like there. Quite a backyard, huh? Straight drop down to the house below. I'm sure they're crazy expensive. In a post to come, I'll tell you about my exciting adventure back home once we arrived back in Long Beach. But, that's for another day...