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"The Bayliner left Long Beach about midnight for a trip to Two Harbors on Catalina Island, which this weekend is hosting the 19 th annual Buccaneer Days end-of-summer bash."

Looks like he was in a 26/28' Bayliner. Catalina is about 22 miles out from that harbor. Its real common to run over after midnight then sleep over there till breakfast time. Some good breakfast places along the water. I lived in a condo on it for 13 yrs. Bad part is that you cross the main shipping channel into Long Beach harbor and it can be a real busy place for cargo ships and barges. Looks like they got hit by one of them. Those are some real monster ships. They run in a holding pattern out there waiting for berthing to unload their cargo containers. I've made that run in boats that size and it can be frightening to see one of those monsters going by you even at 200 yards.
Prayer for them and their families.

One night when we were near the shipping channel the fog was so thick you couldn’t see much beyond the gunwales, the water was like glass and we could hear the bow wave of something very big moving through the water very close to us. Scary!

You are correct, that is a main shipping channel. Those big ships cannot even see you and it is your job to stay the heck out of their way. We have a 40 ft sailboat and have been in and out of Alamitos Bay a number of times, they were all nailbiters for me, scared the crap out of me.