We stayed at the Catalina Island Inn on Metropole St; a cute victorian style large home converted into a hotel with a nice a wrap around balcony on the 2nd floor.The room we had was humorously cozy, but no complaints because of the great location to the center of town which is pretty much a 5 block row of restaurants, bars and shops. The buildings throughout the island were a mish-mash of Spanish and colonial influences. Lots of mom and pop businesses, coffee shops, art and very laid back residents.

Acorn Woodpecker




We brought our mountain bikes to specifically tour the island on mountain bike, but, we came at a bad time. Apparently roads were closed for hunting which they do seasonally. So we just road our bikes around to tour the neighborhood and that in itself was nice. There are golf carts to drive on the island, no cars, so we rented one on Saturday and went be-bopping around the island.


The highlights of the trip were on Chris b-day on Sunday, we rented a little 4 seater boat and drove out to the outer cliffs of the island, away from the town of Avalon. The Bald Eagle population on Catalina Island has made news earlier this year because of it's strong population come back - so we were hoping to spot a few hunting or in flight and we certainly did!! We counted 12 Bald Eagle sightings!!! One of which was completely OUT OF THIS WORLD.. literally, we decided to dock the boat about 300 ft or so away from coral reefs and the kelp gardens so we could go snorkeling. As we're setting up, I look to my left and, no lie, about 100 ft away I see this GIANT BEAST of an eagle, coming up from the water, it had just dived to catch a fish in it's claws, and there it went, swooping it's giant wings upward to go back to the cliffs, and we were lucky enough to have the most Animal Planet view of this guy - the only sad part was not having a camera that would turn on and snap photos quick enough to capture that moment..


After that, we realized we picked THE BEST spot to go snorkeling, EAGLES feed there!! So we dove into the cold Pacific and had a great time seeing all kinds of fish & coral and kelp. I was actually VERY happily surprised about how clean and blue the ocean was; 30+ ft visibility. You could spot many California Girbaldi fish from the boat because it was that clear.


Anywho, we had a wonderful time! We still can't believe this oasis is only an hour boat ride from LA. Now that we know Bald Eagles have recovered there, we hope to make MANY trips back to take more photos with a better camera!