A four-day cruise out of San Diego was hard to resist. The cruise would take us to  Catalina Island - an olde-timey rural haven for the stars - now sporting a yuppified central village, then on to Ensenada, Mexico - another upgraded destination - and then back home to San Diego. And four days would make it a good introduction to cruising for our 34 year old daughter, Rhetta, who has Down Syndrome. She loved it!  We all loved it.  

For me, boarding a ship is possibly the most exciting part of any cruise:  the people, the confusion, the passports (we were in Mexico for one day), eyeballing the height and breadth of the ship up close, seeing our stateroom for the first time, and, this time, watching our daughter’s eyes examine everything around her. 

 
Our ship: the Infinity, a Celebrity ship 

Two thousand passengers, mostly San Diegans and other Californians; unbelievably, from among the 2000, a friend came over to greet Rhetta!  They knew each other from Community Options, a California-wide community jobs and activities program for the handicapped.  (Those who do not have a handicapped person in the family may not be aware that life for developmentally disabled persons has changed dramatically over the years: new programs have created a handicapped and non-handicapped community who know each other through Special Olympics, community dances and picnics, jobs, and living arrangements. We can hardly go any place in San Diego without someone saying “Hi! Rhetta!”)

We were taken to our stateroom,  tried out the balcony, nibbled the goodies left on the table, unpacked and put away our clothing, and then went up on deck.  With champagne glasses in hand, we watched the ship pull out of our beautiful harbor.  The music was playing, and one obviously well-traveled couple was already in the Jacuzzi toasting the voyage.

San Diego Harbor, showing the Star of India in front
of the County Building. One of the most beautiful
harbors “in the world,” says my husband.

Rhetta with champagne glass in hand.

That evening, we watched a very high quality musical and comedy routine  - totally non-Las Vegas.  In fact every night we had outstanding entertainment.  We also gambled.  Rhetta took to it like a fish to water. Yes, we won. The first night my husband won 90 dollars, the next night I won 40 dollars, and  then Rhetta won twenty dollars.  She was stoked!  We actually came out ahead!

Rhetta and Leon surrounded by One- Armed Bandits.

The next day we pulled into the harbor at Catalina.  I had not’t been there for several decades and was startled to see how yuppified the village of Avalon had become. (Even a Starbucks!) This is not necessarily bad.

Avalon, a view along the main street.

Catalina, or Santa Catalina, is a California island, thirty miles off the coast, opposite San Pedro.  It is about 76 square miles in all. Its highest mountain is about 2000 feet above sea level, and its “Airport in the Sky” about 1600 feet. It boasts connections to Zane Gray (he lived there), John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bing Crosby, (they fished for tuna there), as well as a herd of bison (raised for breeding, and, ultimately, steaks), botanical gardens, underwater excursions, and a beautiful round art deco casino with the world’s first all-steel cantilevered roof.  Inside, silent movies were played to the music of a 1200-pipe organ, and couples danced on a “world famous” dance floor,  according to the catalog. The weather, of course,  is Southern California weather - which means it’s temperate tourist weather all year round. 

The harbor with the Casino in the background.

The Infinity from a road about 900 feet up to
the “Airport in the Sky.”

The road to the  “Airport in the Sky”  lined with eucalyptus trees, referred to by the bus driver as “bus bumpers”; that is, trees that keep the bus from dropping over the edge of a steep ravine.

The Harbor from about half way up the road to
the “Airport in the Sky.”

The ownership of the island follows the trajectory you might imagine: originally,  for at least 7000 years, Native Americans, calling themselves “Pimungans” and calling Catalina “Pimu”; then Spanish explorers bringing, as one friend put it, “syphillization”  and Spanish ownership (1542); the occasional American, Russian, and Aleutian hunting party searching for sea otter pelts in defiance of Spain (1790’s); Mexican ownership after Mexico’s liberation from Spain (1822); in the late 1800’s, relocation of the Indian genocide survivors to Mission San Gabriel (thereafter, these Indians are referred to as “San Gabrielinos”); American ownership after the Mexican-American War ended in 1846 (the ousted Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico, gave the deed to the American who gave him refuge);  then various profitable and unprofitable sales to various successful and unsuccessful American businessmen, until finally William Wrigley, the chewing gum tycoon, bought the Island in 1919. (That’s a lot of chewing gum!)  To their credit, the Wrigley Family maintained, improved, and preserved the island.  Today only 2% of the island is owned by private individuals (mostly descendants of squatters who set up tents in what is now the village of Avalon) and public services;  12% is owned by the Santa Catalina Island Company, which is gearing up for several exclusive developments;  and 86% by the Island Conservancy.

What we saw in the windows of the harbor’s underwater submarine: Garibaldi, the state fish of California.

Rhetta’s profile in the window of the underwater sub.

Varieties of kelp: one named “boa” looks like a feather boa; the other kind, “bladder” kelp.  Does it look like a bladder?

Onboard life proved to be every bit as luxurious as advertised.  Dinners were casual and the food was truly good. We spent a lot of time in the warm water therapy pool lying on wide metal tubes running around the sides which spurted and gurgled a massaging gush into the lower back.  We also ordered low-calorie food at the food bar to give us the illusion that we were really working on our weight.  And, of course, more gambling. We did it all. 

Dinnertime – a bit dressy, but not too much.

Leon and Rhetta in the therapy pool.  Notice the bubbles in the right hand side of the picture. 

Not too much movement here.

Yet more gambling.

Our day in Ensenada, which Leon and I had visited many times before, dawned bright and clear and warm. Ensenada is located in Baja California North, one of two Mexican states (Baja California South is the other one) located on a pencil-thin peninsula  between the Pacific Ocean and  the Gulf of California. The area’s main claim to fame, aside from wonderful beaches and ever-growing resort industry, comes from the fact that, from December through March, the gray whales swim down the coast from the cold northern waters of Alaska to the warm water lagoons in Baja, where they give birth. (They pass by coastal San Diego, too, adding a festive extension to the holiday season.) 

Ensenada  itself, about an hour and a half south of San Diego by car, started out as a small fishing village, but it
has now become an “upscale tourist center” because of its deep water harbor and fairly new docking facilities.  It also boasts “La Bufadora” – a great upwards “snort” of water gushing through a blowhole in the rocks - as well as the largest winery in Mexico, the “Bodegas Santo Tomas,” which boasts an excellent restaurant featuring international cuisine.  In fact, there are now many excellent restaurants in Ensenada.  Californians go there for the ambiance, the wine tours, and – still - the fishing, but now mostly on chartered yachts.

We had lunch ashore (because Rhetta rightly insisted on eating Mexican food in Mexico), bought lattes at the nearby coffee shop, were overwhelmed by the giant Mexican flag flapping over the waterfront, and  attended  a dance program in the courtyard of a local performance center.

A small meal in La Tortuga required a picture afterwards.

Leon and Rhetta having a laugh. 
Leon must have been gambling too hard.

Joyce and Rhetta.

The giant Mexican flag waving over the harbor.

Mexican dancers in their beautiful costumes.

It was all unquestionably fun for the three of us.  At dinner that night, Rhetta, always one to enjoy festivities and adventures, said that she would definitely like to “do this” again.  We will.

Our last cruise dinner.

The setting sun.

©Copyright 2006 article & photographs by Joyce Nower