No matter what the season, Avalon Harbor bustles with activity. In the summer, paddleboards, pedal boats and kayaks glide between yachts, while children and adults alike splash in the gently lapping waves. Young anglers toss drop lines over the pier railings while sportsfishers bring in marlin, tuna and seabass. Throughout the year, hundreds of yachts from open cockpit runabouts to the world’s largest mega-yachts ply Catalina’s waters, with most of them spending a night – or a month – moored in Avalon Harbor. Each day, hundreds of visitors arrive via Catalina ferry.
Inevitably, all that activity results in quite of bit of assorted flotsam and jetsam going overboard. From irresponsibly discarded soda cans to snagged anchors and clumsily dropped iPhones to misplaced fishing gear, Avalon Harbor becomes the waste receptacle. Thanks to a dedicated group of volunteer divers , much of that debris is retrieved during the Avalon Harbor Underwater Cleanup. Scheduled this year for Feb. 25, 2017, the clean-up is the only time during the year that recreational scuba diving is allowed inside Avalon Harbor. Hundreds of divers participate, with the cleanup functioning not only as an opportunity to remove debris from the harbor but also as a fundraiser for the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studieshttps://dornsife.usc.edu/wrigley/wies-ccd-cleanup/ and Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber.