Catalina Island beckons with new hiking trails, vestiges of old Hollywood

California sun sends shimmers of light across the choppy waves as I depart Long Beach and head out to sea aboard the high-speed ferry Catalina Express.

My destination: a 76-square-mile fortress of rock that's marooned 23 miles off the coast of Los Angeles.

Catalina is one of eight of the Channel Islands, and it's the only one with a significant civilian population. Latest figures put the number around 4,000 people, almost all of them clustered in the port of Avalon.

This diminutive city creeps up on the horizon like a postcard of tiny cake-colored homes perched along a crescent of golden sand.

Some might recall Avalon