Valkyre

Cruise - Day 3

26 miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is the island for me....

I don't know how the rest of the lyrics go. I do know this. For some odd reason, I kept waking up every morning around 3:00am. But, I would just look outside the window at the waves generated by the ship, and I would feel better and go back to sleep. Awake again as soon as daylight comes through the window. This is what I saw:

I wasn't too sure if it was Catalina at first. There are other islands up and down the coast and it could have been any one of them. But then, I spotted one of Catalina's famous landmarks. The Casino building.

Catalina does not have port that can accomodate a large cruise ship. The ships must anchor offshore and passengers are taken from the ship in smaller boats. Or, what they referred to as tenders. The first tender was supposed to be at the ship by 8:30am. Mike and I decided to just have a leisurely breakfast and maybe wander down to the tenders around 9:30. We figured most of the crowd would be gone by then.

At 9:30, we go to attempt to get on a tender. Only to see the line extends up above deck 4, where our cabin was located. We walk up to find that it ends at deck 6. The gangway was all the way down on deck 1. "I don't do lines!" Mike said. We decided to wait. We went up to deck 7, to get a look at the tender.

Only one tender? That didn't make any sense. We both agreed that they should have two running. While one goes to the island, full of passengers, another returns to the ship. We watch as the tender fills up. All the seats, top and bottom, were full. By the time it left, it was "standing room only". We watched as it slowly approached the island. Suddenly, it stopped. It had to make way for one of the sleek Catalina Express boats.

.

(This is an image from the web, I didn't take it.) The Catalina Express had just come in from the mainland, to drop passengers off. They disembarked rather quick. Compared to the tender, in which it seemed to take quite awhile to get everyone on board.

Catalina Express pulled out and the tender made it's way to the shore. While the tender made it's slow way to the island, I took a picture of a ParaSailor:

Someone passing by heard Mike and I wondering aloud why there was only one tender. They replied, "There was supposed to be two. One broke down. This one was late!" Great! So the tender we just now saw take off had been the first one to take passengers off the ship. Mike and I went back inside the ship and noticed that the line was now all the way up to the 11th deck. Rumor had it, that if you got into that line, it would be at least an hour and a half until you could get on the tender. Mike and I figured that even if we got onto a tender, we really wouldn't be able to stay on the island that long. We would want to catch an early one back to the ship, so we could avoid the lines on the way back. Ah well. We thought we would have to forgo Catalina on this trip. So, we started to wander around the ship. I took pictures of the Centrum Staircase.

This is a staircase that extends from the 4th deck to the 7th deck. You can access the Casino from here. It was on the 5th deck.

We walked down to the 4th deck to ask Guest Relations if all the rumors were true about the tenders. We had heard there was supposed to be another one on the way. She told us that there would be one there at 12:30pm. And, she said that the captain will soon make an announcement that the time on the island will be extended for another hour. Instead of being back by 4:30pm, we could come back at 5:30.

Off to lunch. At 12:45, we decided to see if a second tender showed up. Yay! It was here. Not only that, there was no line. We could walk right on. In fact, they were holding it there until 1:00pm. So, we sat there for quite awhile. This is how the ship looked from the tender:

Finally! We moved away from the side of the ship and made our way around the bow. I took this shot:

Finally!!! We arrive at Catalina. Unfortunately, it is too late for us to go on any of the tours. We decided to walk down the main drag and look at all the shops. One of my weaknesses is Salt Water Taffy. So, I was keeping my eyes open for any candy shops. I would prefer the taffy be made at that shop. The prepackaged stuff is usually hard to chew. I saw a shop called Lloyd's of Avalon Confectionary. There was a sign in the window. "Salt Water Taffy". Yay! Even better, they made it there! As soon as we walked in, we saw a woman just turning off the taffy puller which was loaded down with lemon flavored Salt Water Taffy. Mike and I bought a pound, taking different flavors from the bins. The verdict? Delicious. Not too sugary sweet. Just the way I like it. As Mike and I continued down the path, we were getting closer to the Casino. Mike suddenly climbed up the small hill next to the path and started walking down the road. He was looking for the perfect place to take a picture. He found it. A nice shot of the Monarch of the Seas, surrounded by foliage.

We made it to the Casino. Most of it was off limits to the public. We could walk in a look around. They would, however, take us on a tour for $15.95 apiece. Since we paid $15.00 apiece to tour the Midway, which was a 3 1/2 tour, we thought that this was kind of a rip-off. (When I told my mom about it later, she told me that the Casino tour is not worth the $15.95).

We started to walk back in the direction we came when we came across a Golden Retriever named Good Girl.

She like to swim out to fetch tennis balls for her master. Every time she came back to shore, she would talk down about 20 feet from him and shake the water from her fur. She did this so as not to get her master wet. I could see where she got her name.

Since we looked at most of the shops that held any interest, Mike and I started to walk up the residential streets. And I mean, up! They were steep. When we got to the top of one of the streets, I took another picture of the ship.

It's not as nice as the one Mike took of the ship framed by the trees.

Mike wanted to try to find the Phone Company CO located on the island. He had been there before. He wasn't quite sure where it was at. Suddenly, a phone company van passed by us. It went up the hill and turned left, and then made another immediate left down the street that was parallel to the one we were on. We went that way and found the CO. He pointed out the old switchboard that they had used for decades. We had to look at it through the window. No one seemed to be around.

After that, we went back down to the main street, with the shops and made our way back to the dock. Caught a tender and went back to the ship. Dinner again at Vince's at 5:30. After dinner, we walked around the upper decks for awhile. The moon was out and we watched how it was reflected in the water. Then to bed. Tomorrow, Ensenada, Mexico.

Posted by Valkyre at October 3, 2006 10:45 PM