When I was just a wee lad, I was really into the ocean liners of old. I loved the look, speed, and style of them. Titanic was very interesting and tragic but my favorite of all of them was the Queen Mary. Built in the 30s and then had her maiden voyage in 1936. During World War II they called her the Grey Ghost and she was used as a troop transport. At one point she carried 15,000 men over the Atlantic, on one trip!!
The city of Long Beach bought the Queen Mary for 3 million and change in 1967 and converted her to a hotel and tourist attraction. By the 60s, the jet liner started to bite into the profits of the ocean liners and all of them were either scrapped or if lucky converted to something like the Queen Mary. Philadelphia has the United States ocean liner moth balled and is waiting on someone to save that great ship. Doubtful that will happen though.
Anyway, we left Marina Del Rey once Jen got back from Florida. The morning after in fact. We were ready to scoot. At 8am, I paid the moorage fee and we flashed up the motor and slipped the lines. Destination Long Beach! It was about 24 miles away and we started out motoring but soon the wind filled and we started to sail. Sailed till the break wall at Long Beach and then motored into our slip at Rainbow Harbor.
Rainbow Harbor at Long Beach is a nice enough place. Security is present and we had no problems despite being warned the Long Beach can be trouble. The area we were in looked brand new. They have a huge convention center and associated hotels right there along with a wide variety of restaurants. We ate at Hooters. Yep. I had a cold Coors Light. Ice was in the beer they poured it so cold. Just lovely.
The next day we hopped on the bus and 10 minutes later I was in front of the Queen Mary. Armed with our "good" camera, I looked every bit the tourist. We signed up for two tours. One tour showed some of the boat and gave general info. The other tour was a fun, spooky type thing where they talked about how haunted the Queen Mary is. Both tour guides were great. We laughed and laughed with them as they guided around the ship.
The ship's horn still blows at 1000, 1200, 1500, and 1800. It is a grand, low, rumbling type of sound when it sounds. I'm told it is an A and can be heard for 15 miles and the reverberation has been heard over 50. They tuned it so low so as not to be painful when you were onboard and it sounded.
We all had appetizers and a drink in the first class lounge and then toured the Russian sub that is moored next to the Queen Mary. Great tour. I think we liked the sub more than the ship. It started to rain as we were wrapping up our tours. The first rain since I left Neah Bay. That was on August 15th!!
Once back from the Queen Mary and on Appa, Jen and I were laying in our cabin with the kids in the main saloon area waiting for dinner time and Sam was telling Max and Ben a story about her new toy dog. There was this big narrative about how the dog had no family because "a red lion died the daddy dog". The story went on and on. We were in tears listening to it.
During dinner, we hashed out what to do next. We will hit Disney next week and we will leave the boat in Newport Beach. But first, Catalina Island!
Thursday morning Jen headed out to the grocery store to provision us while I got the boat ready for traveling. Same old thing, check oil, fill water tanks, store stuff away, and go over the rigging.
By 1000 we were on our way. No wind till we motored out about 5 miles and then it filled in from the South at 10 knots or so. Raised sail and soon the wind built to a honest 15 and off we went on a beam reach. Some bottle nosed dolphins played in our bow wave for about 5 minutes and then they were off jumping and screwing around in our wake.
We got into Isthmus Cove on Catalina Island and right in the town of Two Harbors. Very sweet place. Has a Hawaiian vibe. The water has about 30 foot visibility. Max started yelling when we went to grab the mooring pin that he could see bottom and in the NW that means you are going to run around. Not here.
Hit the dinghy dock after securing the mooring lines and walked to town. One grocery store and a restaurant. That is it. And it is ok. This part of the island you can walk to the other side in 15 minutes.
Went swimming this morning once I dug out the wet suits. Water temp is 65 and while we don't need wetsuits I knew that we would want to stay in the water awhile and got the suits out. Visibility was about 40 feet or so. I did a little cleaning of the bottom of the boat and then went off with the boys and snorkeled. Ben did great and Max is a natural. Sam joined us about 10 minutes later and saw the orange fish called Garibaldi. We also saw an octopus and couple other fish species also. Seals were swimming around us but nothing close to see.
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