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Watch out for floating debris!

Alan Gomes

Sustaining Partner
With the El Nino rains finally kicking in, the flood control channels will be carrying all manner of floating debris to the ocean. I was reminded of this by an article I just ran across in the L.A. Times about the L.A. River: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-el-nino-la-river-20160107-story.html

In my cruising area (San Pedro and Long Beach) I expect there will be lots of stuff to avoid once the weather clears up enough for sailing. This debris will also find its way into the Catalina channel and will linger around the area for some time, so extra vigilance when crossing the channel will be in order.

I recall a trip a few friends of mine and I took in November of 2004 from San Pedro to Catalina and from there to Santa Cruz Island. This was after a bout of rain storms. We pressed forward with the trip because we had what we determined to be a good weather window. We ran straight from Avalon to Potato Harbor on Santa Cruz Island. Though the weather for the crossing was just fine we were stunned by the amount of detritus and various assorted garbage we had to dodge to get there. Large tree limbs were probably the most common obstacle. In hindsight it would have made more sense to abort the trip but we pressed on at reduced speed and did OK.
 

Shelman

Member III
Blogs Author
Late this summer we had an unusually large tide and on the way out the bar I counted 18 full trees not to mention limbs, in the half mile stretch out the bar from the marina. The coast guard had hailed me on the radio to give me a heads up as I left the slip, but I didn't appreciate the meaning of "high level of debris in the channel" until I found my self in the soup of trees and limbs.
It takes such seemingly small deviation from normalcy sometimes to throw our worlds off balance.
 
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