This year for our trip to Catalina Island, we took a flight to the island on Island Express Helicopters, just as we did last year. I took some video of the last trip that you can see at this link. Damsel took some stills this year which I stitched together in the composite below – the helicopter arrival at the helipad – the departure over Los Angeles Harbor – Passing Avalon Bay – on the pad at Pebbly Beach.
However, we did something this year that we have never done before – we took firearms. I made a couple of calls to Island Express and Catalina Express (the boat coming back) to inquire about the policies for bringing firearms for non-CCW private citizens. (We have the Utah CCW but the idiots in the California Legislature deem that to be worthless here).
The helicopter folks told us to declare the firearms to the attendant who would ensure that they were packed in the baggage compartment. We were instructed to pack the ammo in separate luggage.
The boat people said to present the weapons to the Captain of the vessel before boarding and the same admonition for packing ammo as before.
Since we didn’t want to take the guns with us during the day while we were touring and dining, we had the hotel clerk lock them in a safe compartment for which I was presented the only key.
We packed the guns (S&W 686 and 442) in their original cases with padlocks. To avoid blatantly carrying gun cases in the terminals and around the streets of Avalon, I packed both cases in a paper supermarket shopping bag which I kept with me at all times until surrendering to the transportation agents.
Lessons learned – we can get both revolvers into a single case since the 442 is very small and the 686 has a short barrel. The safe boxes do not have any padding, so there was metal-to-metal contact during storage and handling of the box. Next time we will put the guns in a pouch or padded gun case when we put them into the safe.
