"Flight to Santa Catalina Island" (for lunch)

03/02/08

Before the cruise, we stayed with some friends of my mom's for several days. This is their private plane. We flew to Catalina Island for lunch, the second day of our stay. It was strange to see them pull the plane out of the hanger that just looked like an oversized garage. We all piled in and the check off sheet was read to the pilot as we taxied out to the runway. I sat where that first window is just behind the opened door.

As we approached the island, we began looking for the bison that still reside there since they were placed there for a movie years ago.
We also looked for the runway. The "landing strip" was pointed out to us and I'm like, "We're landing where? On that...bandaid? Lord, I might be seeing ya soon!" (this was not verbal, only my private thoughts, mind you.) I will admit I was nervous about the landing. As you can see, there isn't much room on either end for a mistake. Yikes!
Fortunately, our pilot was a flight instructor for many years and is quite an awesome pilot. That would have been nice information to have BEFORE we went on the flight! LOL And, thankfully, it was not the pilot's time to go. (don't know if you all know that joke)

This is the shoreline on the west side of the island. It was a very hazy day, and the wing was blocking my view, so it was difficult to get good shots free of window reflections, part of the wing or something else in the shot, but I did manage to get this shot where you can just see how blue and clear the water is. My circular polarizing filter helped to capture that and cut down on the haze a bit.

I know it's just off the coast of Southern California, but I can now say that I've "flown overseas" (get it, over seas? haha) in my photographic travels.