We ought to have gone to Catalina. The contrast between the pristine beauty of the Channel Islands and the congested gaseous falsity of Long Beach could not have been more stark.

Sailing the ninety miles from Prisoner's Harbor to Long Beach was wonderful, however. We left at 1330 and the wind carried us along briskly from Santa Cruz Island, through the Anacapa Passage, and on southeast for miles and miles. There is something to sailing at night that is beautiful beyond description. I always get a little frantic watching the sun go down (will it ever come up again?), but then the moon and stars come out, tiny lights glinting off the waves and green glow of the compass, dew settling on the varnish and cool smells in the nostrils, birds' flight recognized only afterwards by the dark flitting, dolphins breathing by the boat--and I wish the night would go on forever.

Becalmed, at midnight we switched on the engine and ran it at a leisurely four knots until 0615, when Sarka raised the drifter and quieted the motor. Catalina Island appeared miles off to starboard. As the sun came up we drifted, sails slatting but carrying us along at nearly a knot, until eventually we neared San Pedro Bay and the wind built a little, and by the afternoon we were racing along at five or six knots, the boat alive with the movement.

A lasting impression of Long Beach was the line of semi-submerged plastic bags we sailed through, six or seven miles from the breakwater. Container ships improbably giant plied ruler-straight courses with smaller boats darting among them. Our first sighting of Jet Skis, those whining pests. A phony lighthouse with a real light in it. More plastic bags in the water, all waiting to join the Garbage Gyre in the Pacific. Styrofoam cups bobbing merrily on the waves, black oil clinging to the undersides.

Eventually we found our way to an anchorage behind Island White (one of four islands named after astronauts killed in the Apollo program), where it became clear that this was no ordinary island. There is no biological diversity there because it is an oil island, a shallow-water, near-shore alternative to the oil platforms that clutter the Southern California coastline. Because it is opposite some expensive beachside real estate, they have dressed up the island with palm trees and peculiar modern scrims, an artificial waterfall and a mobile tower to conceal the oil derrick itself. Among the trees one can see the tanks and lights and platforms and pipes of an oil well, and the breeze carries a sharp glaze of chemicals.

Next time we will pay more attention to the subtleties of the Brian Fagan guidebook, which reads, "I would be dishonest if I said San Pedro Bay and its busy commercial harbors was one of my favorite cruising grounds."