Results tagged “catalinaisland”

   

An 8.0 earthquake in American Samoa this morning prompted a tsunami watch in Hawaii and a tsunami advisory for coastal areas of Southern California, including Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. [Update: Beaches in LA County will close at 8 p.m., more info here]

We don't know many details at the moment, but a guy named Paul apparently started swimming late last night from the western portion of Catalina Island to the Palos Verdes Peninsula. That's nothing too unusual, as the San Pedro Channel is a popular place for marathon swimmers, but what's pretty cool is that it's being tracked in real time on a Google Maps application.

       

Every time a flying fish popped out of the water, most all of the close-to 100 passengers on the boat began screaming in excitement last Friday night. That's because it's quite exhilarating to see a fish emerge from the water with its wings fluttering about as it tries to glide across the water before disappearing underneath. Some went as high as five feet and for a good few hundred feet in distance, but unfortunately none went as high or far as their ability is rumored to be.

                            

To a rousing success, last night the 2nd Annual Taste of Avalon kicked off the Flying Fish Festival for the weekend. Unlike the Taste of Chicago where restaurants set up booths in one central location, Avalon's taste has you going from restaurant to restaurant. And it works because the small city's downtown is about five blocks long, which makes the event a great way to experience the city.

From the Taste of Avalon to Peddle Boat Race to a parade featuring Huell Howser, the 2nd Annual Flying Fish Festival in Catalina Island's main city, Avalon, is ready to pack a punch over the next four days. It begins tomorrow with a variety of activities including the Taste of Avalon where restaurants gather in the middle of town and dole out $1 or cheaper samples of their best dishes.

By the 1960s, America's bird and national symbol could not be found on any of the eight Channel Islands where it had made home before the arrival of humans. Twenty years before, the practice of pouring DDT into the ocean off Palos Verdes Peninsula, mostly at the hands of the Montrose Chemical Corporation, became a 30 year practice resulting in those chemicals going up the marine food chain into Bald Eagles, whose main diet consist of fish. No, it didn't kill the bald eagles, but it was to their eggs--too thin and fragile due to the chemical intrusion, they were easily crushed before the chicks would hatch. Eventually, with no birth cycle, Bald Eagles were gone.

Here in Los Angeles, the non profit charged with conserving most of Catalina Island's 76 square miles is not exactly one you hear about every day. But who knew that the Catalina Island Conservancy has been producing a daily environmental podcast for over three years now that is broadcast on over 225 radio stations across the country? They're short and sweet, fact checked by two scientists and speak to the group's larger mission of the environement--after all, as they say, we are all on an island.

       

There's something very different about hiking on the interior of Catalina Island, something you can't get on the plethora of trails immediately surrounding Los Angeles. It's the deafening sound of silence--that ever-present rumble of freeways we are so used to on the mainland is no where to be heard on Catalina, where this past weekend a new 37.2 mile cross-island trail opened to the public.

              

On a whim, we decided to check out Catalina Island's city of Avalon one afternoon this past weekend. It was a first for us (okay, for me) and upon returning to the mainland and talking to others, we found that Angelenos really don't take advantage of the resort island and all that it has to offer including hiking, bed and breakfasts, seeing historical sites (hey, the Cubs did spring training here back in the day!), parasaiing, scuba diving, whale watching, beach going, relaxation, etc. In fact, many natives to Southern California we spoke to admitted they had never been to the 76 square mile sized island.

The missing charter plane bound to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana from Catalina was found this morning on top of a hill just west of the island's airport. Three burned bodies were found inside. The LA Times found that the pilot, Mark Hogland, was not licensed to fly commercial flights like the one he allegedly was doing when the plane crash.

It only takes 20 minutes from take off to landing for a plane to go from Catalina Island to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. The chartered Bonanza plane, piloted by Mark Hogland, was carrying two others and took off around 4:50 p.m. yesterday with weather causing low visibility. It was supposed to land at 5:10 p.m., but never made it. The Coast Guard was eventually warned, nearly five hours later, at 10:30 p.m. who began and still continue search and rescue efforts.

Yesterday was one of those great Los Angeles weather days. That is, when 5 miles makes the difference between a downpour and clear sunny skies. The Northwest Valley had some nice cloud cover and the Southeast Valley was perfect all day. It poured randomly in Santa Monica, but Beverly Hills was perfect. Brief spouts of rainfall were also reported in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. Then early this morning, lightning struck. 445 times to be exact, according to National Weather Service sensors, says the Associated Press. The lucky folks who got a little thunder and lightning action lived around Catalina Island and Palos Verdes where three thunderstorms were reported moving along the coast.

The shark attack near Catalina Island this past weekend is the 148 confirmed shark attacks along the Pacific Coast since 1900, according to the OC Register's Beach Blog. They say most have been investigation attacks and not predatory. “The shark was not interested at all in eating her, otherwise it would have stayed in the area and eaten her," explained Shark expert Ralph Collier. Over the weekend, a woman kayaking off Catalina was flung into the air when a shark bumped into her vessel. She landed on top of the shark, but swam to shore safely.

A woman kayaking off the coast of Catalina Island had a close encounter with a shark this weekend. "I couldn't believe it and all of a sudden when I seen the fin I realized this is not a whale -- this is a shark," she told KCAL9. "By the time I thought that ... the shark was already cruising under me and lifting the kayak up with its body, and I landed out of the kayak right onto the shark's body." The shark reportedly swam away as the woman began to safely swim towards shore.

I don't know when I've seen a picture with such intense colors. The zig-zagging of the breakwater makes such a balancedcomposition, and the tanker in the distance is the only sign that you are not on an island in the south seas. The breakwater is 9,250 feet long and contains nearly three million tons of rock, brought over from Santa Catalina Island. (Pedro Chamber of Commerce) The initial western section of the breakwater, called...

Consolation Prize of a Lifetime - Al Gore is a man of peace and gets the homepage of Apple.com all to himself -- should we expect the iAl to come out by the holidays? The Catalina Island Avalon city employee who beheaded a deer and left it in a soccer net is definitely not getting any peace prize. There was another suspicious package today left around City Hall, forcing street closures and the evacuation...

Too many train crashes! Today saw the second Gold Line crash this month, this one being the worse of the two. The Blue Line was involved in a crash earlier this week as well as a Metrolink train yesterday. Tennie Pierce, the city firefighter who claims co-workers fed him dog food-laced spaghetti settled with city council today for $1.43 million dollars. Will it be a cozy night indoors as it rains outside? Yep. Pretty...

So I have this pretty fun tradition (aside from Three Rivers in the holidays), of going camping at Two Harbors on Catalina Island every Labor Day Weekend. The tradition originally began as a Jugglers' Festival, oddly enough, of which I was only a part due to my friend and her husband who are amateur jugglers, and because they are friends with some fairly accomplished ones. There was a juggling volleyball game on one of...

In the springtime when the Hollywood Bowl announced their schedule, a friend of mine made sure to secure tickets to the “Sgt. Pepper’s at 40...a Beatles Celebration featuring Cheap Trick”. For some reason he agreed to go camping at Catalina Island for the weekend with friends, so I ended up with tickets for Saturday night's performance. Looking around the audience in our Section R1 seats, the audience was what was expected for a bunch...

- Fire is not the only killer of trees, so is the DWP.

- Is is scarier that a homeless man was walking around downtown with a glock and pointing it at people while saying Bang - or an undercover cop? - Opinion LA - Nettie Berkson, 91, will attend her 50th consecutive home opener today at Dodger Stadium - Daily News - She's 102 years old, she's from Chico, and this weekend while you doing nothing, she hit a hole-in-one - Seattle Times - Third bald...

- EMI announces that it will offer MP3s on iTunes without the dreaded DRM and a blogosphere rejoices - boingboing - Two bald eagle chicks were born on Catalina Island over the weekend - Daily Breeze - Beverly Hills Unified School District gets nearly $1 million for accepting 159 students into Beverly Hills High who don't live in the district, but are enrolled under a diversity program. Only problem, most of those being brought...

farm flashback These may be the last days of the community farm in south central LA; supporters are $10 million short in their efforts to buy the property from the developer who's ready to take his 14 acres and make a profit. But Hollywood is lending a publicity-generating, eviction-fighting hand: Daryl Hannah is camping out on the property, Laura Dern and husband Ben Harper stopped by and Joan Baez is treesitting. Treesitting, you ask? Don't worry, the eminent folk singer has experienced treesitter Julia "Butterfly" Hill in the tree beside her if she has any questions.

If you've been wondering how you can express your affection for our planet, tomorrow is your answer. Saturday, April 22, is Earth Day. We turned to Green LA Girl to see what's happening around the city. We culled these from her list:

come to Catalina: The Catalina Island Conservancy wants eco-tourists to come to explore the island's massive nature preserve, and is opening a new nature center to sweeten the trip. Critters like Na Shun Tachi, a Santa Catalina fox, await. (photo by Sean Hiller for the Daily Breeze).

There’s something about a long weekend—whether you take a day off of work or are mercifully granted a Monday holiday—that begs for a trip somewhere else. One of the greatest benefits of living in LA is that there are so many places to go to get away from it, and the best of them are right here in California.