Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series. Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available at Amazon, Kindle and in stores in Avalon.
Just exactly what is the Magellan Club and how does one become a member? If you were with me last week, I introduced the concept of this club—named after the intrepid Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan—and the overriding stipulation for becoming a member: namely, circumnavigating Catalina Island under your own power.
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series. Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available at Amazon, Kindle and in stores in Avalon.
Just exactly what is the Magellan Club and how does one become a member? If you were with me last week, I introduced the concept of this club—named after the intrepid Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan—and the overriding stipulation for becoming a member: namely, circumnavigating Catalina Island under your own power.
This includes swimming, paddling a canoe, rowing a boat, paddling a surfboard, paddling a kayak (as I did several years ago). If you’re just crazy enough, you can even swim around Catalina if you wish. That’ll get you into the club all right and I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere along the line someone has done just such a thing.
Mind you, this is a club in name only. We have no secret handshake nor do we have our own array of personalized beer steins hanging from the beams of some pubby Avalon locale. I could, however, probably have some t-shirts whipped up in a jiffy.
Because of the research I’ve done into this topic and because it’s my club, I can think of no better candidate for “Admiral of the Magellan Club” than one particular local gentleman.
But before I introduce him and tell you of his circumnavigational exploits, an Honorable Mention is in order.
Way back in 2004, our local diver extraordinaire Captain Jon Council completed an unbelievable circumnavigation of the Island while SCUBA diving. Yes, you read that right.
As part of a fundraising and awareness-raising event, Council completely circled Catalina Island underwater, a distance of more than 50 miles. Technically, because he was aided by a DPV, or a Diver Propulsion Vehicle (one of those hand-held propeller-driven thingies) he doesn’t qualify for our contest here. But I think you will agree that I would be greatly remiss in not mentioning his incredible feat and conferring Honorary Member status upon him.
Therefore, I would have to say that the title of Admiral of the Magellan Club should go to our very own former Avalon City Councilman and former Mayor of Avalon Rudy Piltch. Over the course of a decade, Rudy rowed his 14-foot Catalina Wherry rowboat “three and a half times” around Catalina. Sealing his status “the Admiral,” Rudy was in his early 70s when he made his last circumnavigation in 2005.
Rudy shares his accomplishment with former Two Harbors resident Jim Dittmar, whose wife Sherry joined them on two of the trips. Two other adventurers, Tammy London and Bob Clark, accompanied Rudy and Jim on the last trip, thereby becoming charter members of the Magellan Club.
The type of boat that Rudy and Jim used for their around-the-island trips was originally designed back in 1910 by legendary Avalon boat builder Pard Mathewson. Mr. Mathewson built many of the original rowboats and even glass bottom boats that one sees in early photographs of Avalon.
He is also credited with building the first motorized glass bottom boat.
What possesses a man to row a boat around Catalina Island? According to Rudy, it was his love of rowing and just all around ocean adventuring that impelled him to make the trips.
“I worked for Joe Guion at Avalon Boat Stand when I was a kid,” he said. “He used to let us take out the rowboats and row recreationally. I kind of fell in love with it then.”
Rudy’s first rowing trip around the Island was in 1993 and as with subsequent voyages, he took a few days to complete the trip. According to Rudy, there was no particular reason for the trips other than the adventure and the love of the Island and the sea.
As I mentioned earlier, Rudy has completed “three and a half trips” around the Island. That “half trip” was Rudy’s third attempt at circling the Island.
“We had gotten as far as Little Harbor,” he said. “We’d been camping on the very West End and there had been a gale force wind in the upper part of the Channel and it created some really big, steep crests and waves.”
Those waves, banging into the cliffs along the windward side of the West End, were reflecting back out to sea and mixing it up with new swells coming in. This confused sea wreaked havoc on our heroes in their tiny boats.
“If you were within 100 yards of the shore you’d have the wave coming in from the southwest and then after it hit the Island you’d get the waves going back out,” he said. “And it made it so hard rowing that we finally went into Cat Harbor and quit.”
Like a Joseph Conrad novel, however, Rudy eventually found redemption for the failed attempt by successfully completing the next circumnavigation—his last one—in 2005.
There are no doubt other members of the Magellan Club out there, people who have at one time or another circled Catalina Island with nothing but their brawn and bravado. (I hear a rumor that Packie Offield accomplished this feat in a kayak once…)
I don’t want to leave anyone out, so if you know of any other such adventures, stop me on the street or email me at jim@channelcatalina.com.
