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For more than a century, those individuals who are charged with marketing Catalina Island as a year-round vacation destination have devised numerous and imaginative ways to achieve their ends. These marketing efforts often materialize in the form of events that the planners hope to become annual affairs. Sometimes this works out well, including the Catalina Art Association’s art festivals, Two Harbors Buccaneer Days and the world-renowned Catalina JazzTrax weekends, to name

Catalina campfire lore tells us of a hideous beast haunting the hills around Iron Bound Bay on the island's West End. (Image by Grok) A million tales have been told around the crackling campfires of Catalina over the millennia, with topics ranging from sea monsters to ghosts to tales of deranged madmen, one of which may even now be hiding behind those very trees yonder, warns the teller of the tale. So, it comes as no surprise that some of these accounts were bound to revol

Is it a ghost story or a tale of reincarnation? (Image by Grok) What follows is a ghost story that transcends time and space, a story rooted in Avalon but transpiring in two different physical locations all at once, as if the distance between those two spaces was non-existent. This is also a story possibly tinged with that age-old belief known in Sanskrit as the samsara, or reincarnation. It’s a story I’ve heard many times from Avalon’s own Chuck Liddell. A story that had a

The island of Rota north of Guam took the brunt of Typhoon Bavi with winds reaching 180 miles per hour. (Jim Watson) There is something so vast and clean about the Pacific Ocean. Unlike its sister sea the Atlantic, with its green-hued waters and troubled shores, the Pacific spans nearly a third of the globe, interrupted only occasionally by enchanted islands with relaxed cultures, swimming-pool lagoons and clean-as-glass breakers pounding themselves into foam that glares blea

For most Americans throughout our history, the July Fourth holiday has been a happy occasion, filled with family and fun, barbecues and beach balls. But the Fourth of July of 1944 was an especially joyous occasion for First Engineer Charles E. Pyle, one of the many graduates of the U.S. Merchant Marine’s Avalon Training Station on Catalina Island during World War II. It was on that date that, against all the odds, he survived one of the most harrowing experiences of the war

The tiny, picturesque harbor at Cruz Bay on the island of St. John's in the US Virgin Islands. (Jim Watson) Like all islands in the Caribbean, the Virgin Islands have their share of tales of mystery; a dark side, if you will, dwelling alongside the fun and sun. Beyond the obligatory tales of spectral pirates and restless souls lie intriguing tales of an unconventional sort. THE 99 STEPS It’s not often you come across genuine werewolf stories anymore, not outside of the

A ketch rests at anchor in Charlotte Amalie Harbor in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. (Jim Watson) Scattered across the West Indies like emerald shards in a cobalt sea lies the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. Stowed away between the old Spanish dominion of Puerto Rico and the enchanted isles of the Leeward Antilles, the islands have long played a legendary role in the history of the region. Today’s Virgin Islands archipelago is comprised of two distinct administrative u

Smugglers. The word conjures up romantic images of cutlass-toting sea rovers and shady wharfside deals. Smugglers are always smuggling something exciting, it seems, or what they’re smuggling probably wouldn’t be illegal in the first place. Smugglers and islands have always gone hand in hand and Catalina is no exception. The Island’s numerous secluded coves and canyons and its proximity to the large coastal markets of Southern California has always made it attractive to t

The ruins of the Arecibo Observatory's radio telescope in the mountains of western Puerto Rico. In 1974, the radio dish sent out humanity's first attempt to contact alien civilizations. (Photo courtesy Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) This is the third installment in this series and the final one featuring the mysterious island of Puerto Rico. TALKING TO ALIENS Puerto Rico is a classic mixture of modern civilization thrown in with ruins of all sorts, ranging from Native American Ta

Isla Caja de Muertos, or Coffin Island off the southern coast of Puerto Rico. (Mary T. Hoffman) THE DREADFUL SECRET OF COFFIN ISLAND Long ago in Old San Juan there was a bookkeeper and budding pirate named Jose Almeida who fell madly in love with the wife of his boss, a very powerful man in Puerto Rico at the time. Because revealing his love for Alida, as she was called, to the husband would mean certain death, Almeida only divulged his secret to Alida herself and wisely ke

NOTE: The series "Tales of the Caribbean Sea" will resume next Friday. That most mischievous of holidays alternately known as All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, All Saints Day or Halloween, is upon us again, signaling the change in seasons from summer’s light to the coming chill of fall and winter. Below, you will find a handful of ghostly tales experienced over the years by some of our island locals. THE PEBBLY BEACH ROAD HITCHIKER American folklore is filled with tales of oth

An afternoon thunderstorm, no doubt a spin-off from Hurricane Melissa currently threatening the island of Jamaica, rolls across the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Here in the barrio of Santurce where I have my rental unit, life comes to a standstill due to the ensuing deluge. Shop owners linger in their doorways, construction workers lounge under convenient overhangs and laundry set out to dry is hurriedly taken in. I’m here for the next five weeks in that region of the Ca

Coming this month, travel to that most fabled and mysterious of seas, the Caribbean, as I embark on a six-week odyssey to Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and their European sisters, the British Virgin Islands. There, I’ll not only be blogging my way through that little corner of the West Indies, I’ll be doing research for future books. It’s all part of the plan to produce a series of Mysterious Island books, bringing you the same storytales of ghosts, pirates and their

Nobody likes Monday mornings. Monday mornings are the proverbial realm of hangovers, lethargy and hind-sighting quarterbacks. But the morning of Monday, Nov. 12, 1934, was especially dreadful for a group of workers at Catalina’s East End rock quarry. Quarry work has always been a hazardous affair. The combination of heavy equipment, explosives and unyielding, unforgiving rock make it one of the most dangerous professions on earth. But in pre-OSHA times and before modern safe

(Image courtesy Sony Pictures Television) This is the second in a two-part series on the author's experience as a contestant on Who Wants...

(Graphic courtesy Sony Pictures Television) This is the first of a two-part series on the author's experiences as a contestant on the...

In a previous post, I told the harrowing story of the near-tragic flight of a Grumman Goose amphibian seaplane enroute to Catalina...

Catalina Festival of Art book signing. (Photo by Bruce Hall ) Happy to report I had great success at the 66 th annual Catalina Island...

Few legends have persisted as long as the legend of Atlantis, a supposed continent from the ancient world that through one cataclysm or...

Humans Against the Sea Over the dozen or so decades that have passed since the town of Avalon first hung out its shingle as a tourist...