San Diego to Catalina Route

[Compactorguy]

If you are going to Avalon during summer it was packed last year on the weekends with mooring owners showing up and boaters having to move to other moorings or being turned away. Avalon is best mid week during summer. Two Harbors is great any time.
You will have a great time and wonder why you never did the trip before.

[Letterkenny]

Originally Posted by Compactorguy

If you are going to Avalon during summer it was packed last year on the weekends with mooring owners showing up and boaters having to move to other moorings or being turned away. Avalon is best mid week during summer. Two Harbors is great any time.
You will have a great time and wonder why you never did the trip before.

Aren’t a majority of the moorings public? Thought also that the Avalon website showed current availability?

[Letterkenny]

Originally Posted by thunderhoof

I've done this trip several times in multiple sailboats. From SD it is mostly motoring so take enough fuel for a round trip because the fuel price in Avalon is $$$$. The trip I enjoy most is motor direct to Avalon on Monday or Tuesday, getting an early start so I get in early enough to get a mooring for two nights. Check the Avalon web site for seasonal rules.

After a few days of doing Avalon stuff head for Two Harbors early AM, sailing or motoring. The trip takes 2-3 hours so get there by noon and get a mooring for the rest of your stay. As usual moorings are at a premium on weekends but if you are there before noon Friday you should be in luck. Again, Check their website in case the is a big event taking up the mooring field.
I really like Two Harbors. Everything you need, nothing you don't plus very easy going.
Heading back it is a fairly easy reach from TH to Oside, about 57 nm. Try to arrange a guest slip at Oside YC. I have found them very friendly.

After a night there it is about 45 nm into SD Bay.

If the sailing to SD is a bit much I suggest heading for Dana Point harbor. It is about 40 nm from TH and 33 nm from Avalon. From there it is a downhill run to Oside, Mission Bay or SD.

In Mission Bay there is an anchorage just inside the breakwater on the left in Mariner's Basin. There is enough water for most boats, but watch your depth. If you anchor in an open spot with no boats around you will be aground when the tide ebbs.

I’ve done Mission several times. Nice little hop over. Is Oside YC separate to get a guest slip than from the city? Wish there was an online reservation system there. Have you ever made the return trip in one go? I have sailed the SD harbor at night and a ton during the day so am more comfortable if I had to do a night entrance than at Catalina. Main issue is the pots that are around there but should be okay if I were to stay in deep waters up until the channel approach.

[Auklet]

You have a bit more than 13 hr of “day light” between nautical twilights on April 1. But if you get going out of SD Bay leaving by 0500, an hour earlier, and you have until about 1945, 14.7 hr, to arrive at Avalon before dark, then if as you say 73 n.mi. @ 5 kt VMG, that calculates to 14.6 hr of travel time. Not much of a margin, if any, granted. Ten% more VMG of 5.5 kt could work for a direct run not requiring overnight travel. BTW. It’s good caution not to enter unfamiliar harbors after dark. But, I’ve entered Avalon several times after dark and it’s much less stressful than, say, Oceanside. Not bad at all. The Oceanside Yacht Club guest dock is not a city dock. Separate location; different process. Generally you’d have to be a member of a reciprocal yacht club to use it (with the YC’s permission).

[Auklet]

Originally Posted by Letterkenny

Aren’t a majority of the moorings public? Thought also that the Avalon website showed current availability?

The short answer to your question is probably no. Generally, moorings are leased; there has “always” been a waiting list to get one. The harbor can rent out a lease-held mooring if the lessee is not going to be using it at that time. If the lessee (“owner”) decides to come over to sit at his/her mooring, anybody on it will be moved to a vacant one, etc. Catalina harbors cannot make reservations more than a day or two in advance, when they do, until they know the potential number of “rentable” moorings available. But if the harbor/cove is full, and you are on somebody’s mooring who wants to come over, they’ll put you off. So then go anchor, go home, or try another harbor/cove.

[Junglebike]

Yeah last summer Avalon was nuts. Stay away during the weekends, and even Wed/Thurs I had some trouble. There's always space up at White's though, a few nm to the North.

It's a long slog up in a sailboat. Watch the swell via buoys - usually in the summer it's pretty calm at night but in the spring there's a lot of variation. We were thinking of a trip up for spring break (this week) and glad we didn't end up doing it given the weather we've just had - swells this morning off Mission Bay are 8.8' @13s.

Motoring straight into even a modest swell for hours can be unpleasant. Our first trip up in our old First 405 we left at midnight and all of my kids ended up waking up and puking. Not great. Easing the mostly windless passages to the islands from down here is one of the main reasons we got a trawler!