Diving Catalina, a couple of questions

Hi Folks,

My wife and I are finally planning a dive trip to Catalina. It's been "on the books" for years! Anyway, we're booked in at the Seaport Village Inn for early September. We were just wondering about the ferry (Catalina Express) baggage restrictions as per their website. We'll have three "suitcases" between us, but also three "carry-on" bags as well. We're planning to take our own dive gear - minus tanks and weights, but the DSLR rig and its modest collection of ports (2) and lenses (3) along with a laptop, easily fills two carry-on size bags. Any comments on the difference between the posted restrictions and reality for a travelling diver/photographer, would be great.

Also, while we understand we won't have a vehicle to dive from while we're there, we were just wondering what the prevailing consensus was with respect to getting dive and photo gear from the hotel to the dive site and back. We've read about taxis, golf carts and hand carts. Just wondering what folks might recommend.

Of course, any other insightful advice would be gratefully appreciated!

Thanks!

Lee

This guy lives there:

Bill Bushing

bushing@harvard.edu

www.StarThrower.org

You'll likely be fine on the Express. Have never had a problem being slightly over, and half the boat is divers. That said, it's been a few years since I did it last (tend to take boats out of Long Beach these days to hit the islands).

As I recall, the hand truck was a schlep but there were plenty of them. Golf cart seemed convenient as I was pulling a few hundred pounds in a cart in the hot sun, but probably good for my heart :-)

Enjoy, it's a beautiful location.

Check out the LAUE Ghost Fishing Project's footage of their cleanup of the Infidel if you want to see what it looks like at 150' just a (long) stone's throw from the casino at Avalon.