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AVALON, CATALINA ISLAND - A Long Beach boat club put together a cruise to Avalon in the summer of 1961. I entered with my 14 foot wooden run-a-bout and my wife's 14 year old brother, Skip, as first mate.
We departed early on a beautiful Saturday morning and arrived in gorgeous Avalon later that morning. We secured our mooring and took the water taxi to town for breakfast at Joe's Cafe. Avalon is such a great place to stroll and people watch and we did just that.
In the afternoon, we fired up the Mercury 75 and cruised to the east end to fish and dive, collecting a few calico bass for dinner. The weather turned windy and cloudy, so we hustled to our mooring and arranged the tarp over our open boat. We were placing our sleeping bags under the closed bow, when the skipper of the yacht next to us asked if we would board his 40 footer to keep loose boats away during the stormy night. He went to secure a room and we were soon warm and snug aboard his boat.
The next morning we returned to our small boat and despite a small craft warning, slipped into the 40 footer's wake, baling and speeding toward Long Beach&.
At the end of the Viet Nam war, Army Captain Skip returned home. I knew he had taken enemy fire and I asked him what his most dangerous mission was.
"That would be crossing from Catalina with you in that (darn) little boat!!!"
Dean Buckland
This article was previously published in the articles section on eCatalina.com
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