Santa Catalina Island

THIS rugged isle rises from the ocean like a dark bony whale, its belly licked by giant kelp and tickled by garibaldis. Dock at Avalon, and soon your eyes are drawn to niche gardens on the tiny resort town's narrow streets, shocking the senses with fiery geranium and magenta bougainvillea, towering palms and yuccas dating to the 1930s. But make the slow, bumpy ride toward remote Middle Ranch, and the landscape quickly shifts. Cliffs are clothed in the quieter, more natural beauty of St.

Summer is here, the silly season for tourists who wish to visit Santa Catalina Island but haven't quite done all their research. "We once had someone on the mainland call from a cellphone in their car," said Gwen Kleist of the island's Chamber of Commerce. "They were saying they couldn't find the bridge." Mysterious Catalina (cont.): Some tourists who reach the island still aren't sure where they are. "One person asked me, 'Is this really an island?'

For a quarter of a century, wildlife experts have been struggling to revive a breeding population of bald eagles on Santa Catalina Island that was wiped out by a massive deposit of DDT off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Reminiscent of a quiet European village, the city of Avalon on the eastern edge of Santa Catalina Island is about 21 miles, or roughly an hour by ferry, from the shores of the mainland. Incorporated in 1913, Avalon is a tightknit island community of about 3,200 permanent residents surrounded by untouched native scenery. Background Evidence of human life on the island dates back 7,000 years. The Pimungans were among the first inhabitants on record.

Only buzzing crickets pierced the silence at the Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Garden. Visible from its peak were the turquoise waters of Catalina Island's busiest harbor, where sold-out commuter boats deposited tourists and cabin cruisers zipped about. Yet deep into Avalon Canyon, at this garden uphill from the town of Avalon, quiet reigned amid towering cactus and plants that grow naturally nowhere else on the planet. William Wrigley Jr.

The phrase "island hopping" refers to the grand strategy of the American armed forces in the South Pacific during World War II, but it takes on a whole new meaning in "Santa Catalina Island Goes to War," a charming and illuminating scrapbook of photographs, documents and artifacts from the moment in history when Catalina was suddenly transformed from a tourist destination to a military outpost.

Night after night, Steve Quarnstrom returned to a patch of deep, choppy water on the back side of Santa Catalina Island that he claimed as "my fishing hole." Guzzling beer to mute a methamphetamine rush, he prowled the swells in a skiff, authorities said, screaming insults at other boaters and shooting at sea gulls and sea lions that chased his bait and catch. Locals shrugged it off as an extreme but tolerable example of an independent spirit they call "the islander mentality."

Want to break away from the tour bus and see the "wild side" of Santa Catalina Island? For $79 per person, you can join a small group on a half-day four-wheel-drive trip that focuses on nature. The new "Cape Canyon Tour" takes in some of the same places as Discovery Tours' long-running half-day "Inland Motor Tour": the Airport-in-the-Sky and the Summit Road overlooking bays near the resort town of Avalon.