Saturday morniing and Emerald Bay is nice

Had a very nice motor around Catalina West End Friday morning, a gentle 6-8 knot north breeze filled in and we happened through a large number of Risso’s Dolphins on the way in to Emerald. Some hours later a half-dozen boats motored past the point and joined us, some into Isthmus and some into here at Emerald. And later in the day Magic Express came into view. We chit-chatted with Charles over the VHF and after they had anchored he and the two kids joined us for sundowners on Beetle. Apparently the cats are a hit with the kids and Nibs even got a proper lap to sit on and good scritches from the daughter Jojo.

Kristen got her inflatable paddle board up and running with the aid of her new nifty pump that is designed to run higher pressures than Beetle’s dinghy air pump. With board up and running Kristen promptly did a proper lap around Emerald. Meantime I got the dive gear out, some battery charging involved, and spent 40 minutes perusing the bottom at the smaller bit a touch north of Indian Rock. There are a lot of small brownish seaweeds hanging onto the rocks at the bottom, plus an most fun bright blue plume coming from the seaweeds – almost as if looking at flowers blooming on the hill side. A fun dive, and I found the GoPro camera battery had lost its charge so it did not come along.

So far this morning we’ve run the dinghy over to Doctor’s Cove – this is a local dive site that Nic recommended. We checked for kelp, which is there, along with the kids from the camp on shore out in their kayaks. Not a lot of boats here this weekend, water is semi-chilly at 61 degrees and I see a lot more kayaking than snorkeling going on around Indian Rock where our mooring is located.

Plan for the day is to charge up the dive tank and dive at Doctor’s, Kristen has extra-pumped up the SUP and is rather pleased with the pressure pump she picked up. It works well when run from the ship’s batteries and easily hits 14.5 psi without struggling – that a significant improvement over the Bravo pump I use for the dinghy that doesn’t seem to like hitting 10 psi.

Conditions are light and variable wind, a low jiggly bounce to the small waves wrapping around the point and over to us, clear skies – looks to be another lovely Southern California day at the island.

Have fun!

– rob