Ahoy!
I missed all the festivities in the Southern California waterways on the Fourth, as I was visiting Discovery Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta aboard a Mainship yacht. The air temperatures were over 100 degrees, which made for great boating and swimming. However, I thought that the bay and delta were not very busy on the Fourth and the weekend, and there are a few vacant slips at the marina.
However, I did notice a boat from Dana Point and two boats from Newport Harbor that I believe I skippered when the vessels were located in Southern California harbors. I would recommend boaters to visit the waterways to our north, but carry your charts and have the correct chart cartridge in your GPS. It is very easy to be confused with the vast number of channels as to which channel to transit to your destination because of the lack of navigational markers.