Franko's Map of Santa Catalina Island

Side 1 shows Franko’s Map of Santa Catalina Island featuring the most amazing, beautiful and perfectly accurate shaded relief of the Island, with it’s surrounding waters depicted in descending hues of ocean blues to indicate actual ocean bathymetry and depth contours. Shaded relief accuracy is derived from USGS digital elevation models, as interpreted by ArcView, a geographic computer program from ESRI. The ocean depth contours are a direct trace of the local NOAA charts, and thus, in addition to being beautiful, are also accurate. Catalina Island’s miles of dirt roads are shown criss-crossing the island interior and along it’s coast, with mileages indicated.

All of the “main roads” can actually be driven (or mountain biked, in my case). By the definition of the Santa Catalina Island Company which governs such matters, these main roads include Old Stage Road (which becomes Airport Road in the middle of the Catalina Island), Middle Ranch Road (which leads to El Rancho Escondido, where equestrian shows can be watched), Escondido Rd., Tow Harbors Roads and West End Road. Also shown are the lesser roads, which are more than just trails, but which the Santa Catalina Island Company forbids mountain biking for safety and insurance reasons. However, hiking is permitted just about everywhere at Catalina, although you need to get a permit from the Catalina Conservancy to hike into the Catalina Island hinterlands.

Catalina’s major peaks, names of valley’s, points, beaches, and other island features are shown in perfect accuracy. Over 70 dive sites are located and briefly described so that the scuba diver or free diver has an excellent, authoritative reference. The list is long, but it includes famous sites such as Avalon Underwater Park, The wrecks of the Sue-Jac and the Valiant, Toyon Bay, Torqua Springs, Henrock Reef, Long Point, Italian Gardens (where you’ll likely see giant sea bass), Ripper’s Cove, Rock Quarry, Sea Fan Grotto, Bird Rock, Ship Rock, Eagle Reef, Indian Rocks, and Johnson’s Landing. And that’s just a start on the leeward side! The windward side includes the famous and fabulous Farnsworth Banks, as well as less-visited sites like Pin Rock, Little Harbor, Lobster Bay, and Iron-Bound Cove. If you have a boat and want to moor it at Catalina, this map shows every mooring area around the island. If you want to do some boat-in primative camping at Catalina Island, that is there too. So is the general camping at Catalina Island’s five fabulous campgrounds. This map is like an adventure guide book on Catalina for all of the information it provides.

Side 2 shows Franko’s Maps of Avalon and Two Harbors. Franko’s details of Avalon are shown including roads, trails, camping, hotels, beaches, dive spots (Avalon Underwater Park and Lover’s Cove), tours and The Casino. Avalon’s famous Green Pleasure Pier is shown jutting out into Avalon Bay, where the location of the moorings, boat terminals, Casino Point, the Cabrillo Mole, and every swim area are shown. The exact location for every hotel in Avalon is shown and numerically listed. Franko’s Two Harbors detail shows the local dirt roads and trails, dive sites including favorites such as Ship Rock and Bird Rock, where to kayak, the Two Harbors Campground, and the popular Boy Scout Camp at Cherry Cove. Beside the full list of hotels found on Catalina Island, there is also a full list of transportation options to the island, as well as on the island, dive and ocean recreation services on the island, and Franko’s favorite feature: Kelp Forest Creatures, is beautiful hand. Computer drawn color picture, which is equivalent in itself to one of Franko’s famous fish cards. Just in case the viewer would like to embark on one of Catalina’s many wonderful tours and adventures, there is a listing of the two major tour companies. They include submarine rides, night-time flying fish watching, inland motor tours to the Airport-In-The-Sky and Escondido Ranch, Seal Rocks Tours, Avalon Tours, Casino Tours, and much more.