AVALON AFICIONADO: Even if you regularly find yourself making for Santa Catalina Island's largest port-of-call, perhaps to attend the annual September film festival or a vintage ball at the Casino Building, you might occasionally ponder if you should venture beyond the town's borders a bit more. Sure, you might go on a few hikes, into the inland, or call upon the sweetest landing strip in existence, Airport in the Sky, but for many Avalon aficionados a boat trip to Catalina means dining, hoteling, snorkeling, and staying put within the snug city's confines. All of this can make Two Harbors, Catalina's other outpost, seem positively exotic. It's not on the mainland-facing side, it's smaller, and getting there? Well, it takes commitment. You might want to arrive by boat, in fact, which lends Two Harbors a rather wayback feel (something that locals rather like and cherish). So when buccaneers arrive over the first weekend in October, to whoop it up and speak pirate-talk, and raise a glass of grog (or beer, more likely), the smaller of Catalina's burgs bristles with colorful action. As it will again, from Thursday, Oct. 2 through Sunday, Oct. 5.
BUCCANEER DAYS: The Santa Catalina Island Company's matey-ist party marks its quarter century turn in 2014. There shall be live music and DJs every day of the big bash, and costume contests, and treasure hunts, and a deck's worth of revelers rocking tri-cornered hats. Camping packages, too, are part of the plan. There's definitely a party atmos, one that encourages the raising of the glasses, so call it the liveliest weekend on the Two Harbors calendar. But unlike other pirate-themed parties you've attended, in backyards and living rooms, this one has a major plus: It's in a scenic cove on the Pacific. That's an arrrrr-worthy setting, if there ever was one.
