Catalina Island has long been a favorite getaway destination for Southern Californians — and indeed receives visitors from across the country and around the world. For the majority of the last hundred years, the island has been a remote location accessible only by slow boat, seaplane or helicopter. It was difficult and expensive to visit. But all that changed in the summer of 1981 when Doug Bombard, his son Greg and colleague Tom Rutter bought the sport fishing boat Checkmate from Washington-based Westport Shipyards and modified it into a passenger vessel to carry passengers to and from Catalina Island. At…