the stale taste of tourism

July 5th at Catalina island, off the coast near Long Beach: an infestation of the bored and wealthy

my family and i puttered around in a golf cart that was actually called a "Catalina Limo." while the vista overlooking Avalon was clearly gorgeous, the tourism was definitely stale, particularly in the eyes of a cynic. my brother and i shared a ginormous ice cream waffle cone dubbed the "big olaf." there were people packed on sandboxes (built to resemble a sandy shore) overlooking an equally packed dock. toddlers in lifesavers, middle aged tourists in open air bars at noon, disgruntled employees selling 5 minute showers for 2 dollars. i like people, but it's difficult to celebrate the glory of human civilization when observations of my surroundings only inspire the desire to snub out cigarettes of callous tourists, toss out the 1000 calorie desert i'm engorging, and swim home.

so there is a healthy population of bison on the island--about 200 of them. fourteen were introduced in 1924 to film some western movie and left there to procreate and wreak ecological disaster. but scientists always know how to take advantage of a crisis: the bison have not been eradicated so that they may serve as the premise for a long term ecological study.

I also swam around in the dive zone in the immensely frigid and salty water that was not at all pleasant to have going down the throat. that's too bad because open water swimming is amazing. i was able to catch glimpses of brilliant orange streaks intermingled with flashes of silver and copper. garibaldi are surprisingly difficult to catch with bare hands and nudibranchs equally difficult to spot without proper scuba gear. a scuba diver also asked me to retrieve a camera entangled in a bed of kelp. the rescue mission was a success!