Here're some photos from Muir and San Gabriel. Not only is Catalina clearly visible, you can clearly see Santa Barbara island too. You can also see the container ships in the Santa Barbara channel and by the LA/LB port. Swinging around, the snow-capped San Gorgonio is clear, as is San Jacinto. Looking around with polarized sunglasses made the ocean yet more clear, by a lot. I'm really kicking myself for never buying a polarizer for my camera. This has now been rectified for the future.
Sorry for the large images, but that's sorta the point here. The originals are even better. Remove the "?variant=..." piece from the addresses to get those.