SUP Camping Catalina

Paddling through the Blue Caverns at Catalina

Ernie Johnson (of Johnson Big Stick Paddles) and his wife Andie, along with friends Allan Cheateaux and Jamie Peterson, recently hit Catalina for four days of paddle-touring and camping. They carried all their gear strapped to their boards and spent four days camping and playing on Catalina. Pictures speak louder than words, so I’ll just show you Ernie’s pictures, with just a few comments he made in an interview with Paddleboard.com

Vamanos arrives in Avalon with boards stacked and ready

We were ferried over to Avalon by Capt. Dan Smutts of The Vamanos.

The big 50 foot cat makes an ideal platform for offloading boards and equipment

We went from Avalon up to Emerald Bay and back

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Jamie’s ready

Emerald Bay is up above five miles to the north of the isthmus, which is Two Harbors. We took all of our provisions in dry bags.

Allan’s ready

My friend Allen Cheateaux makes his own boardsAll of our water, provisions, sleeping bags, spear guns, snorkels, masks, fins, stoves, everything was tied to the deck. We stopped along the way at these camps that you can only boat into. The total distance was about 35 miles, and it took us about four days.We just kind of put our heads to it and said, hey let’s do a camping trip, and go over to Catalina and get dropped off. For safety, we did have a handheld VHF radio and a couple cell phones. Other than that, the most dangerous thing that happened was we saw a dead goat floating in the water that we thought was attracting sharks, that was kind of a highlight.

Heading out

Nap time–the boards make a pretty good lounge

I was on this Stewart fifteen-foot experimental catamaran thing that I raced last year in the channel races, and then my wife was on a stock, twelve-foot Ron House.

Up and at it, buckwheat

Paddles make decent tent poles

Really, it was pretty simple. We just took dehydrated food and had a little stove, and some sleeping bags. We slept under the stars with just a tarp with the paddles holding it up.

Ernie shows off his handiwork–pretty paddles

We stopped at a place called Italian Gardens the first night, around Long Point.

Jamie and Allan with their boards

It wasn’t that demanding. You’re looking at maybe 8 miles each day, which perhaps a bit much novice paddler, but easy for an intermediate paddler.

Jamie and the Island–Catalina is a rugged place

You’re supposed to stand on that thing

Pretty serious load, and a wild board

Most of my gear went right in front of my feet, and the other two boards had spots for gear in the aft and the forward part of the board. It got heavy—I was carrying four gallons of water at one time; my bag was probably sixty pounds.

Then we paddled up to the Isthmus which is Two Harbors, the other harbor in Catalina, and then we had a really nice lunch and a few beers and paddled up to Howland’s Landing where my friend runs the camp. He put us up for the night and we had a really great dinner. The next day did some diving, speared some fish for lunch and dinner—sheephead, mostly, small ones 3 to 5 pounds, and a couple calicos.

Life is good if you’ve got a big stick, Johnson

Arrgh, Pyrates

Kelp Monster

Heading into the blue caverns

We paddled into a place called Blue Caverns

It’s a natural cave that you can Kayak through, but nobody’s ever stand-up paddled through it.

It’s a U-shaped cave. The ceiling is probably eight- to twelve-feet in some parts and as low as five feet in other parts.

You have to scoot down and get all crazy just to get out there.

We stayed at Little Gibraltar the next night, and that was really cool, because we had this little tarp tent that we used our paddles to hold the tarp up with and then we pitched our ground cloth and slept under that.

It was really sweet. After Little Gibraltar, we had a nice downwind run all the way back to Avalon. That was about an eight mile paddle back, and the wind was blowing at about fifteen knots at our back, so we were able to scoot along pretty fast.

Beer!! and lunch, and back to civilization