John decided he would like to celebrate his birthday at Catalina Island.  We left our slip at 6:00am on Friday morning and after a stop for fuel we were on our way. Here is John’s reaction when we first spotted the island:

By 3:00 pm we were anchored off of Hen Rock and pretty much had the place to ourselves:

It was a different story across the anchorage at Moonstone.  The Newport Beach Yacht Club was having a stag cruise and it was packed with guys gone wild:

They were all flying this party burgee.  Apparently this guy has attended a few of these events:

After their party on the beach, a bunch of the guys went aboard Juno for a little golf and skeet shooting.  Yep, Juno cruised around in circles outside the anchorage with golf balls being whacked off the bow and guns blasting from the stern!!

And then we look up and here comes “Aqua Man” flying towards our boat:

Not a typical weekend at anchor!! And then there was the guy water skiing in the anchorage — behind a sailboat!! Seems like every time we turned around we would say “Well, I’ve never seen that before!”.  It was great fun, but it was also nice when all the boats cleared out on Sunday afternoon and we had the anchorage back to ourselves again:

One of my favorite things to do at anchor is to eat our meals outside.  Here are a few yummy things we enjoyed in the cockpit.  Cheeseburgers with Claiborne & Churchill Brut Rose:

Baby Back Ribs with Phipps Family Cellars Zinfandel:

Grilled Halibut & Mango Salsa, Asparagus and Fennel with a 2007 Chausser Chardonnay:

And a few of our favorite boats at Moonstone: