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Immediately after arriving at Catalina Island on Sunday, Robyn and I dropped our bags in the room, grabbed our wetsuits, bought some sandwiches to go, and ran down to the pier to rent a boat. After all the traveling, and the heat at the wedding, we needed to get into the water fast.

Boat rentals were actually pretty reasonable. $130 for 4 hours for a 10HP and $150 for 4 hours for a 15HP. On Sunday, we rented the 10HP – and it was just fine for putting around – but on Wednesday we wanted to explore more locations and I wasn’t thrilled with the 10HP’s inability to plane, so we upgraded.

In our rush to get out in the water, we neglected to rent any snorkeling gear. Since we weren’t familiar with the island or the safety of the waters around it at that point, we regretted that mistake. We would have liked to scan the bottom where we anchored to make sure there wasn’t anything that was going to eat or impale us. But it turned out there was nothing to worry about anyway. Regardless, we spent a bit of time with large zip-loc bags over our heads (a child-safety nightmare) trying to peer into the water. Yes we have pics of this, but we look too idiotic to put them online.

The water temp was about 68 degrees – chilly enough that our wetsuits made us quite comfortable, and allowed us to hop in and out of the water without dealing with temperature changes. We spent the hours swimming at a few sites along the island, eating lunch (actually more like dinner) on the boat, and generally winding down.

Check out all the pics here.

Here’s a video of us setting off from Avalon for the first time: