Catalina Islandthe name conjures images of a pristine tropical island. Located twenty-six miles off the coast of Southern California, Catalina Island is known as the island of romance for good reason. A popular destination for boaters, fishermen, and tourists, its a recreational mecca at seaa place where people come to escape from the reality of urban life. Boasting 86,000 square miles of unspoiled and undeveloped natural beauty, Catalina is an island paradise with wild animals, surrounded by an ocean teeming with fish. For thirty-two years, Charles Douglas Doug Oudin lived a fantasy life on this secluded oasis. As the former harbormaster, he saw it allharrowing storms, dramatic ocean rescues, traumatic accidents, and the tragic death of actress Natalie Wood. Encounters with sharks, buffalo, wild boar, and even a sea serpent are just a few of the strange and unique experiences he had while living on the island. Now, in this memoir, he shares his story. For those who know and love Catalinaand those who have always wanted to visitBetween Two Harbors reveals a glimpse of what life on the island is really like.

Santa Catalina Island is one of the West Coast's great nearby escapes, an hour's boat ride from Los Angeles and Long Beach for one million annual tourists. The island's seventy-six square miles contain two communities--Avalon and Two Harbors--and extremely rugged seashores and interior wild lands. Here, the history has been carved by pirates, smugglers, prospectors and squatters and set down by seafaring scribes and Hollywood fabricators. The facts have been massaged by the ebb and flow of time and scattered like sun-baked rocks from a beachcomber's kick. Co-authors Patricia Maxwell, Bob Rhein and Jerry Roberts have collected Catalina's basic facts and lore into a quick reference that's as easily accessible as the most charming of California's Channel Islands.

A year-round escape for one million annual tourists, Catalina Island is gaining popularity as a world-class eco-destination. Eighty-eight percent of the island is under the watch of the Catalina Island Conservancy, which preserves, manages and restores the island's unique wild lands. Bison, foxes and bald eagles are its best-known inhabitants, but Catalina is home to more than sixty other animal and plant species that exist nowhere else on earth. And they are all within the boundaries of one of the world's most populous regions: Los Angeles County. Biologists Frank Hein and Carlos de la Rosa present a highly enjoyable tour through the fascinating origins, mysterious quirks and ecological victories of one of the West Coast's most remarkable places.