Crashing the Boy’s Weekend

Sometimes I think I lead a charmed life. I can’t believe some of the amazing adventures I’ve been on and many of them totally not planned. When I stop and think about how when I met Toby, he was practically living out of his car and delivering pizza and now he’s one of the most sought after photographer’s in Orange County, my head spins. It’s like my fairy tale has come true. I never married Toby for his money because he had none back then! But today I’m a lucky lucky girl who gets to enjoy the perks of being a photographer’s wife. I always believed in Toby and thought he would be great someday. But I never dreamed up this kind of life.

Like tagging along on a fishing trip to Catalina Island on a luxury yacht that even Beyonce and Jay-Z would be proud of!!! It was something else! I’ve never been on such a nice boat before. The six and five year old boy’s were not too thrilled that I was allowed on. They were under the impression that it was a boy’s weekend only. But Toby was shooting the boys for a brochure he’s working on and the Dad’s thought they could wrap the whole thing up in one business/pleasure event. I came along because Toby has that nasty cough and he needed an excuse to get a hotel on land while they all slept on the boat. I thought that was a grand idea. A hotel night on Catalina Island! Bring it on!

One little itty bitty thing I didn’t take into consideration before I signed up: Riding a yacht to Catalina is a little rockier than taking a heliocopter. In fact it was downright just like having morning sickness. I puked three times. Good thing I’m an old pro at this puking thing. It was just like being in my first trimester all over again. Thankfully once we got to solid land, the nausea went away. Phew!

We moored at a place called “Moonstone Cove”. It’s got to be the prettiest little cove if you’re not counting Toby’s Dad’s cove up in Northern California. There is a little dock and a small rock beach perfect for learning to skip stones on. The land is private but since we had connections, we said we were guests of the local country club and had a nice time lounging in the shade of the trees.

After washing down the boat and a little rest on the dock, we took a small dingy over to Avalon. (You can’t moor the big boat at Avalon because all the moorings are spoken for and you have to rent one from somebody who already owns one.) I wish I had better pictures of the crazy ride over but I’m using my 10D and my lensbaby that has the narrowest angle of view ever because it’s “fairly telephoto” (tobyspeak). It was pretty fun though, scooting over the water at 30 miles an hour with the wind in your hair and the water spray flying by you. When we pulled into Avalon there were boats every where. July is peak season for them. We could barely even squeeze into the dingy dock and had to jump from dingy to dingy just to get to shore.

When we got on land we had a terrific lunch and then the boys got ice cream for the big photo shoot. Toby really had a time of it getting the boys to act like models and not crazy hellions. He was trying to get a nice picture of them enjoying ice cream with the landscape behind but he almost got ice cream on his lens instead because they kept lunging at him. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

After the quick photo shoot, we went on a glass bottom boat ride. The water was pretty murky so we didn’t see much besides the very well trained fish that follow the boat around to get fed. The visibility wasn’t as great as it was the last time we went several years ago. You might remember this movie from that trip.

Then the boys left with their dad’s for a barbecue back at Moonstone Cove and lots of fishing and we stayed in Avalon to take night shots of the harbor. It was the most pleasant summer night you could imagine. I don’t have any shots because Toby made me leave my camera at the hotel so I could help him carry his gear. His hand started swelling up again and this time it was his right hand so working with a camera and a lot of gear was a little stressful for him. Maybe later I’ll post one of his. Of course his shots look like postcards but then what do you expect?

Sitting up at the top of the hill looking down at the harbor full of boats and the Casino all lit up was the most pleasant thing I could think of to do on a perfect night like that. The temperature was just right and there wasn’t even a breeze. Above it all we could hear the squeals and laughter of all the people below enjoying the summer like only vacationer’s can. Avalon almost reminded me of how festive Mexico can be on warm nights like this. It was really amazing. We missed a comped dinner at the Catalina Country Club but weren’t too disappointed because when we got there, five minutes after they’d closed, there was a wedding still going on and the canned dj music was really cramping our style anyway. Instead we ate at a second story steak restaurant and dined by the open window so we could watch people go by down below. It was a perfect perfect weekend. Especially when you’re getting paid to be there!

We stayed at the Hotel Atwater and it was nice. The walls were a little thin and the trash trucks dumping trash outside our window in the morning made us feel like we were back at home. But Toby really liked our view because outside there were two palm trees absolutely riddled with holes made by woodpeckers. He must have sat by our window taking pictures of woodpeckers for two hours or more. Hey, whatever floats your boat. I, on the other hand, took a nap! (For the baby of course!)

I didn’t take many pictures on the ride back because I was so worried about getting sea sick again. I didn’t take my eyes off the horizon once. I did see a few dolphins and the tail of a whale though.