Between Two Harbors: Reflections of a Catalina Island Harbormaster

by Doug Oudin

Overview

Catalina Islandthe name conjures images of a pristine tropical island. Located twenty-six miles off the coast of Southern California, Catalina Island is known as the island of romance for good reason. A popular destination for boaters, fishermen, and tourists, its a recreational mecca at seaa place where people come to escape from the reality of urban life. Boasting 86,000 square miles of unspoiled and undeveloped natural beauty, Catalina is an island paradise with wild animals, surrounded by an ocean teeming with fish.

For thirty-two years, Charles Douglas Doug Oudin lived a fantasy life on this secluded oasis. As the former harbormaster, he saw it allharrowing storms, dramatic ocean rescues, traumatic accidents, and the tragic death of actress Natalie Wood. Encounters with sharks, buffalo, wild boar, and even a sea serpent are just a few of the strange and unique experiences he had while living on the island. Now, in this memoir, he shares his story.

For those who know and love Catalinaand those who have always wanted to visitBetween Two Harbors reveals a glimpse of what life on the island is really like.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491700624
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/30/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	412
File size:	949 KB

About the Author

Charles Douglas “Doug” Oudin is a retired harbormaster for Santa Catalina Island, California. For twenty-one years, his ‘Between Two Harbors’ column appeared in the Catalina Islander newspaper. He has an associate of arts degree from Mt. San Antonio College. He and Maureen, his wife of thirty-four years, live in Grants Pass, Oregon, and are the parents of two sons.

Read an Excerpt

BETWEEN TWO HARBORS

Reflections of a Catalina Island Harbormaster

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By Doug Oudin

iUniverse LLC

Copyright © 2013 Doug Oudin
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-0064-8

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CHAPTER 1

The Big Move

It was April 1, 1978, a grey, overcast morning that was typical along the coast of southern California. With me were my girlfriend Maureen, my brother Dave and my sister Vicki.

And yes, somehow it did seem fittingly appropriate to be moving to an island on April Fools Day.

As we approached San Pedro, the fluorescent lights of the waterfront cast an eerie glow over the warehouses and wharfs of Fish Harbor in the busy back bay of the Port of Los Angeles, where I kept my boat docked. Even though it was not yet daybreak, the hustle and bustle of the commercial basin was already teeming with activity as dockworkers went about the tasks of loading and offloading fish, supplies and cargo from the ships tethered to the docks.

We wanted to get an early start to the day, realizing that it would be long and that there would likely be a few unknowns to deal with along the way. As I backed my old Dodge pickup truck as close as possible to the dock where my boat Little Smoke was tied, my thoughts flew randomly from the present to the past, realizing that the move we were making was vastly different from the norm, and that the lifestyle that we were accustomed to living was likely going to change rather dramatically. Nonetheless, my senses soared with anticipation and my energy level was running at a feverish pace.

Climbing out of the truck cab, I looked around for a dock cart. The bed of my pickup truck was loaded with the last of our belongings. I located a cart next to the Port Police building and wheeled it over to the truck. Dave, Vicki and Maureen were already moving the boxes and assorted personal items from the bed of the truck onto the ground. There wasn't too much left to move; we had loaded most of the larger belongings that we were taking onto the boat the day before.

Working as a team, it wasn't long before the last boxes of clothing were stuffed into the bulging forward cabin of my old boat and everything stacked around the deck was tied-down and secured in anticipation of the ocean crossing we would soon make.

I parked the pickup outside of the gates along the side of Front Street, instructing Dave to park his vehicle nearby. We headed back to the dock where the boat was tied, climbed aboard and made preparations to depart.

Little Smoke, an old Hansen designed New England style lobster boat, was built in 1954. Her ribs were bent oak and her planks Philippine mahogany. She measured thirty-two foot in length, had an eleven-foot beam and was powered with twin six cylinder Chrysler Ace engines—classic old workhorse marine engines of the forties and fifties. My brother Mike and I had bought her in a state of sad disrepair about two years previously, and I had spent the past two years restoring rails, decking, cabin, and interior, while Mike and his good buddy Jimmy Watts rebuilt the engines and repaired and upgraded the electrical system. We set her up for commercial fishing, purchased a commercial fishing license, and did a limited amount of rod and reel rock cod fishing once she was running. Since the fishing endeavor was minimal, at best, and the expenses of maintaining and docking her in Fish Harbor was a burden on Mike's limited personal budget, he had expressed no problem with me moving and taking the boat to Catalina Island.

I re-checked the oil and cooling system, inspected the bilges and fired-up the engines. They both started on cue, we cast off the lines, and pulled away from the docks. We were on the way to our new life on Catalina Island.

* * *

As the sharp semi-displacement bow of the Little Smoke knifed across the smooth, oily surface of the bay, tiny flecks of phosphorescence danced outward on the bow wake. Plumes of white, misty steam spewed from the stacks and industrial pipes dotting the shoreline, eliciting a vapory rainbow of color from the vast array of lights emanating from the waterfront. Passing through the narrow, rocky breakwater that leads into the outer harbor, I reached out and pushed forward on the short bronze levers of the twin throttles, increasing our speed to a steady ten knots. Little Smoke purred like a heartily stroked kitten.

Maureen came alongside where I was seated on the captain's chair and placed her hand on my forearm. "I can't believe we're really doing this!" she stated.

I looked at her, smiled, and answered, "Well, it's true. We are on the way, and I can't wait to get there and start our new lives together." She squeezed my arm affectionately. I flashed back briefly on the day we had met.

Maureen and I had been living together in a small cottage in Hermosa Beach. We had met one night at the 'Poop Deck', a small pub located on the strand in the little beachside town. I was tossing darts with my current girlfriend's brother, Ron Stuerke. I looked over at the pool table and saw a cute little blonde preparing to make a difficult shot. The cue ball was on the far side of the table from where she stood and she needed to reach out and try to make the shot from the near side. In order to reach the cue ball with her cue stick, she had to stand on one foot, lift her right leg up onto the edge of the table, and stretch outward. When I saw her perform that maneuver, I almost choked on my beer.

Ron laughed, fully understanding my reaction. "Pretty nice, eh?" he commented. "Would you like to meet her?"

"Sure." I gulped.

He introduced us. When I reached out to shake her hand, a slight but very noticeable jolt of current passed through my body as our fingers touched. I gripped her hand and looked into her sparkling blue eyes.

Her touch continued to send tiny little waves of titillation through my system and I was momentarily stunned. I had never experienced anything quite like that, and I think I held onto her hand and gazed into her eyes for a prolonged amount of time. When I finally realized that I was caught in a trance, I grinned sheepishly and felt my cheeks flush. She smiled back, giving my hand one final squeeze before letting go. Both of us were very aware of the spark that had occurred.

We played a game or two of pool, and a few weeks later I dumped my girlfriend and we moved in together. Now here we were on a boat heading off to live on a remote island.

There wasn't much boat traffic yet, and visibility was limited because of the gray canopy of a heavy marine layer that hung over the water, but we could see and feel an occasional boat wake as we ploughed toward the entrance at Angels Gate, the outer breakwater of Los Angeles Harbor. Rounding out around the L.A. Light, I checked the compass heading and steadied the boat onto a course of two hundred seven degrees, heading for the Isthmus of Catalina. I felt very comfortable about our compass heading, having purchased and installed a brand new Navigator Compass earlier in the week.

Once outside of the harbor entrance a slight southwest swell lifted and lowered the boat as it chugged seaward. Seagulls cawed in the milky darkness, ready to begin their insistent quest of hunting for food in the vast expanses of the surrounding sea. Not more than a mile from the breakwater entrance we became engulfed in the murkiness of a developing twilight, augmented by the presence of the persistent marine layer. It was a relief to know that daylight was not far away; there is always something disconcerting about cruising on the ocean in darkness, a noticeable sense of not knowing what is out there.

I was seated on the captain's chair with a small padded 'lift box' set atop the seat so that my head poked out above the cabin hatch, thus giving me improved visibility. I kept a close eye on the compass, depending upon it to steer us toward our destination, some twenty miles away.

Maureen and my sister Vicki kept up a steady diet of chatter as we motored to seaward, while Dave and I sat quietly in the two helm seats pondering our own thoughts as they chatted. We all pondered the unknowns about our new adventure and what we might expect to encounter once we were settled.

Maureen filled Vicki in on how we had come to the decision to move to Catalina.

"We were really just looking for something new and exciting to do," Maureen explained. "Initially, we looked into moving to the Marquesas Islands, a US territory that was actively seeking American citizens to invest or simply move to and work in the islands. It appeared that there was an abundance of opportunity for a young couple and we thought very seriously about going there. But it was a long way from home, family and friends, and so when we heard about a job opening on Catalina Island, we decided to look into it."

Vicki interrupted her and asked, "How long ago did you hear about this?"

"Less than a month ago," Maureen continued, "Doug has a friend, a couple that lives on a boat and they went to work on the Island for the summer. When they left the Island and returned to Redondo Beach, they got together with Doug and told him about a job opening for a bookkeeper at the Isthmus. I phoned, got an interview with Doug Bombard and his son Randy, the people who manage the Island operation, and they liked me. I was offered a job that same day."

"What about Doug?" Vicki asked. "How does he fit into the picture?"

"Well, that was interesting," Maureen chuckled. "When I told them about him, that he was a carpenter, did boat work and commercial fished, they said that he sounded just like the kind of person they needed on the Island. They told me he 'could come along'. So a couple of weeks ago they invited us to the Island for the weekend to look things over. We stayed at the Banning House Lodge, looked at housing, and basically just checked everything out. When we got back home we gave notice to our employers and started preparing to move. Now here we are on the boat heading for our new home."

"Wow!" Vicki exclaimed, "Sounds like you guys don't mess around when it comes to making big decisions."

"Well, like I said, we were feeling stagnant and just needed a change in our lives. We're going to give it a try for a while. We're thinking that we will stay for one year. It will certainly be different, but we are excited and looking forward to the change."

About that time, the first vestiges of daylight were lightening the morning sky. As the light improved, a silvery glow began to spread across the sea surface, its metallic looking sheen casting rippled shadows on the subtle undulations of the moderate southwest swells. When the sun climbed over the eastern horizon, its muted rays cast a fiery glow onto the mirrored sea surface. The marine layer was thick enough to prevent the sun from being wholly visible, but its presence was marked by a spreading brilliance causing all aboard the Little Smoke to squint and don our sunglasses.

We were about an hour out of port, a little less than halfway to our destination. I lifted the engine hatch to check the bilges. The steady throb of the engines filled the cabin with a mild roar. Everything looked in order in the bilge, so I closed the hatch cover and returned to the helm. Visibility was still quite limited, although the advent of daylight lent a more comfortable feeling to all aboard.

About that time a pod of several hundred dolphins suddenly appeared around the boat. From all sides the cavorting mammals raced and leaped from the gray-blue depths, their shimmering bodies soaring out of the water and then gracefully splashing back into the ocean. Dave, Vicki and Maureen ran out onto the foredeck to watch the spectacle, while I climbed up onto the lip of the cabin hatch in order to get a better view, steering the boat with my feet. All around, the beautiful animals swam, leaped and danced, their antics generating 'oohs' and 'aahs' from all of us. At the bow of the boat, two of the playful animals glided gracefully on the small wake of the prow, one on each side, and their powerful tails flicked only slightly to maintain their position. Occasionally they turned onto their side, their large black eyes seeming to glance upward to acknowledge the presence of the three humans standing on deck watching them swim. Periodically the dolphins rose to the surface and ejected a spout of seawater from their blowhole while releasing a sharp squeal in the process. The dolphin pod stayed with us for close to fifteen minutes before disappearing into the enveloping gray shadows that clung tenaciously to the surrounding ocean surface.

Another hour passed and I began to wonder why we had not yet seen the Island. We were now more than two-and-a-half hours from port and I fully expected to see land popping out of the misty gray. I slowed the engines to idle forward and spoke to the others.

"We really should be seeing land by now," I told them. "Why don't you all go out on deck and see if you can see or hear anything."

As the others went out onto the foredeck, I shut down the engines. An all-encompassing quiet engulfed the boat. Only the muffled sounds of the rippled sea surface gurgled against the hull. A gull could be heard squawking somewhere in the gray, but we could not see it through the low hanging shroud. Above us the sky glowed pale blue, an indication that the marine layer was burning away, but at sea level the visibility remained less than a mile. As we all looked around and listened, I caught a brief flash of something off our port stern. Gazing in that direction I recognized the vague outline of what appeared to be a small boat.

"Hey, guys, there's something over there," I called out, pointing in the direction of the muted shadow that had caught my attention. "I think it's another boat. I'm going to head over that way and see if we can find out where we are."

Restarting the engines, I put Little Smoke into gear and motored in the direction where I had spotted the other boat. As we moved closer it soon became obvious that there was a small fishing boat drifting on the small, undulating swells. When we neared the boat, I put the engines into neutral and drifted nearby calling out, "Good morning." We seem to be a little lost in the fog. Can you tell us where we are, or where Catalina is?"

We could hear chuckles coming from all three men onboard as they looked at each other, obviously thinking that we must be idiots to be 'lost' at sea. One of the men spoke out. "You're about two miles from the West End," he informed us, pointing toward the east. "You can see the outline of the Island over there."

Sure enough, when I looked in the direction he was pointing, I could see a very vague outline of the Island above the low cloud layer. I think all of us were focusing too much on the sea surface while looking around and did not recognize the outline of the ridge top of the Island.

"Great. Thanks for your help. Good luck fishing," I told them.

Back at the helm station, I shoved the two cast-iron bars of the gearshift levers into forward and turned the wheel toward the tip of the Island. Soon we were rounding 'Lands End' on the western tip of Catalina and cruising along the leeside toward the Isthmus.

Our little fiasco of 'getting lost' on our move to the Island was ultimately one of the little 'lessons of the sea' that would serve me well in later years.

As mentioned previously, I had purchased and installed a new compass about a week prior to our departure. When I attached it to the console top in the main cabin, I presumed that it would perform properly—after all, it was brand new and the salesman at the West Marine store assured me that it was more than adequate for my boat. What I did not know at the time is that magnetic forces from metal objects can affect the performance of a compass, and even though I was aware of deviation tendencies from magnetic to geographical north, I was not aware that the influence from metals could significantly alter a compass' reliability. As a consequence, when I installed the compass, I mounted it directly forward of the helm station, where the operator could see it easily. Unfortunately, the gear levers on the Little Smoke were cast steel levers, painted gray, and about eighteen inches long. When engaged, the levers moved to within six inches of the compass, thus exerting metallic influences onto the magnetic field of the compass and throwing the actual heading off by nearly thirty degrees. I had not taken the boat out since installing the compass, and so the deviation from my presumed heading put us way off course. I moved the compass to a less affected location a couple of weeks later, learning a valuable lesson along the way.

Later in my career, when I began giving 'Discover Catalina' seminars to groups on the mainland, I was to use that embarrassing story as one of my informative lessons for new boaters.

* * *

Once we were inside of the lee of the West End, the Island terrain became beautiful, covered in a lush layer of spring green grasses in the lower reaches and dotted with thick, dark green foliage in the higher elevations. Along the ridges a burnished red soil, peppered with patches of the dark green bushes, gave the scenery a vision of stark and artistic beauty. Along the shore, steep cliffs tumbled into the majestic blue waters where thick patches of floating kelp beds wafted lazily upon the calm sea surface. As we moved eastward, the cliffs ended quite abruptly, replaced by an expanse of a long pebbled beach that rose gradually toward low rolling hills. There was a small boat moored on a single mooring tucked into a tiny little cove nestled behind a low rocky cliff. Two small tents could be seen situated on another low bluff nearby. Dave pulled out the chart guide for the Island and informed us that we were looking at Parsons Landing and Starlight Beach.
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from BETWEEN TWO HARBORS by Doug Oudin. Copyright © 2013 Doug Oudin. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction....................     1     

1. The Big Move....................     2     

2. A Step Back in Time....................     17     

3. Of Whales and Other Tales....................     22     

4. A Growing Family....................     31     

5. The Death of Natalie Wood....................     46     

6. Mooring Turmoil....................     56     

7. Buffalo....................     64     

8. Boats, Planes, Drugs, and Bombs....................     71     

9. Pig Hunting....................     95     

10. Expanded Duties....................     110     

11. A Wild Ride....................     122     

12. Island Life....................     141     

13. Memorial Day from Hell....................     154     

14. Career Changes....................     172     

15. Death of a Queen....................     185     

16. Boys Will Be Boys....................     196     

17. Boating Mayhem....................     211     

18. Wildlife....................     221     

19. White Seabass....................     232     

20. A Memorable Marlin....................     241     

21. End of an Era....................     252     

22. Yacht Clubs and New Responsibilities....................     264     

23. USC Bound....................     279     

24. Bird Rock....................     289     

25. Mother Nature Unleashed....................     302     

26. A Big Birthday....................     314     

27. Chaos in the Isthmus....................     330     

28. Sea Serpent....................     345     

29. A Terrifying Accident....................     354     

30. The Love Boat....................     363     

31. Helicopter Tragedy....................     381     

32. An Emotional Farewell....................     394     

Epilogue....................     400