LABOR DAY FLIGHT TO CATALINA

Matt and his coworker Jason have been trying to find time to do a flight together (with me and Jason's wife Judy too, of course), and planned a Labor Day trip to Catalina Island.

The fog rolled in Monday morning and we were worried that our flight plans were foiled. We waited it out over a delicious breakfast by the airport and sure enough, the skies cleared out a perfect channel for us between L.A. and Catalina. There was still a blanket of clouds on either side of the channel which made the flight all the more beautiful.

I always feel pretty cool wearing the headsets when we fly and I was happy that Judy was as excited about the gear as I usually am. She looks pretty "legit", no?

Here are our Captain and Co-pilot.

Before our trip, Matt had mentioned that he wanted to do a little snorkeling in Catalina. So, me being the conscientious traveler that I am, I called ahead and found out the best place to snorkel and rent our gear ... and, of course, scoured the web regarding shark attacks in the area. Turns out I wasn't the only one in our group who worried about what was lurking along the Catalina coastline. ;)

After sufficiently freaking myself out about sharks in general, I put my fears to rest upon discovering that the most recent--and only recorded--shark "attack" at Catalina wasn't an attack at all - and was all the way back in 2008. A woman actually landed on top of a shark after being knocked out of her kayak by the curious sea predator. And that was the extent of the "attack."

In the end-thankfully-the only wildlife we ran into (i.e. drove safely past) on the island was this big guy:

Judy and I were both a little more keen on spending the day relaxing in the sunshine rather than flipping along in cold ocean water. But after one look from this guy, we decided we'd better get with the program and hit the waters.

Despite the icy ocean water, my very non-thermal oversized rental wetsuit, and the attack of the kelp forest, we all had a lot of fun snorkeling.

Don't worry that I was so mesmerized by the first fish I saw that I missed the octopus Matt was trying to point out to me. And don't worry that I saw about a million more of that same fish and not one eight-armed sea creature. Bummer!

After our snorkeling adventure, we randomly ran into our good friend Ethan and his girlfriend Kim. We all had a delicious dinner together before rushing back to our airport shuttle bus...but not before snagging some delicious ice cream to end our perfect Catalina daycation.

THANKS FOR FLYING WITH US JASON & JUDY!

WE HAD A BLAST WITH YOU GUYS!!