There are 3 ways out to the island: by air, by private boat or by chartering a boat. We went out on a boat with Island Packers, the only commercial boat allowed to land on the island by the National Park Service. Here is a picture of us leaving Ventura harbor on the ship's map.
An interesting sail boat we saw in harbor.
A picture from the starboard side while leaving the harbor in Ventura. Boat leaves around 8 am daily. Another leaves at 11ish.
The approximately 20 mile trip to and from the island affords many opportunities to see wild life such as whales, sea lions, ocean birds, and dolphins. On the way out, we got to see sea lions hauling-out on a buoy.
While we did not see any whales, there were plenty of dolphins!
This is the main land as we are on the boat. It may be visible from the island on a good day.
There were also several oil platforms off shore that we could see. The island in the background I think is Santa Cruz.
A closer panorama of Santa Cruz. It is the largest island in the Channel Island chain. According to Island Packers "The eastern 24% of the island is National Park Service (NPS) property. The western 76% is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC)." Because the boat was bouncing up and down so much, the panorama function on my camera didn't work. I had to stitch these two images together on my computer using a free program called hugin so you could see the whole island.
Just to give you some perspective, we are heading to the circled area above and all the pictures you see below on the island or in the water was taken within the little white circle you see on the map below. Keep in mind that this map only shows the NPS's property, 76% of the island you don't even see. Also keep in mind that this is just one of the five islands in the channel islands national park.
At Scorpion Anchorage (red dot on the map above), the ship let us off. It just drives up to the dock and keeps its engines running forward to keep the bow up against the dock while people get off.
Scorpion Anchorage is a busy spot with kayakers, snorkelers and people just sitting on the beach (although most of it is rock and not sand). The small boats you can see in the picture are private boats. I met some locals who take their boat here all the time to kayak (although kayaking out would be crazy but some do it as I'll show you below). There are also commercial kayak tours available.
The trip up to the visitor center displays the islands history as a ranch. In the late 1800s it was profitable to build a ranch out here because there were no natural predators, no need to build fences and no rustlers (as there were in tombstone). You can still see the old farming implements such as plows, mowers, and cement mixers.
As the island didn't become a national park until 1980, there is more modern equipment there as well. This is the Oliver 70 built in 1946 and was brought to the island in 1954.
Humans have been on the islands for a long time. 13,000 year old bone fragments of a human leg bone on Santa Rosa is the oldest known human presence in North America. The Chumash Indians eventually settled on the island. Today they make the trek from the mainland to the island in their tomol (canoe) to preserve their heritage.
Camping is also allowed on the island and must be an awesome experience. I'm definitely going to go back and camp someday. Here is a picture of the upper campsite about 3/4 miles inland.
Here is the lower campground about a quarter mile inland.
Everything on the island is solar powered. Here is the pump house which brings up water from the well into a water tower for use by the campsites.
The visitor center is solar powered as well. However they are all dusty because they are not being used right now because the batteries connected to them are dead. They cannot change the batteries because they do not want to disturb a bat colony roosting by the battery bank.
Although most of the spots we stopped were very impressive, Santa Cruz was my favorite (although there are close seconds). I have heard the islands described as the "Galapagos of California" due to its low visitation and unique endemic species. The island chain is home to 145 species of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. Below is a picture of an island fox which is not found anywhere else in the world. Everything was going great for them accept when the ranching started, it brought with it wild pigs. This in turn brought non-native golden eagles to prey on the feral pigs and then also the island foxes. The foxes were particularly vulnerable because they have no natural predators and were not used to hiding. From 1999-2006 the eagles were trapped and moved to other remote places. The pigs were also removed by hunting and the island fox population returned. Since they have no natural predators, they are not as skiddish as animals on the mainland.
Here is where the volunteers and rangers stay over night complete with restrooms and a community kitchen.
We got to go on a 2 mile hike with one of the rangers on cavern point loop.
Here is a deposit of diatomaceous earth we encountered on the way up which has many applications including pool filters.
The view at Cavern Point. Absolutely breath taking. Apparently it was also a garbage dump for the Chumash. I guessed that it was up at this beautiful vantage point to motivate the people to take out the trash but the ranger said experts believe it had more to do with isolating the smell.
As you walk back down the trail you see Scorpion Harbor again. In the foggy distance is Anacapa Island.
Picture of a sailboat for my grandpa. He loves sailboats.
After the hike, we went snorkeling in the kelp forests. Here is what it looks like from above.
Here is what I believe to be a dead spiny spider crab (Maja squinado) or it could just be the exoskeleton or exuvia.
Here are some kayakers enjoying the water. They had rigid ones but we brought our own blow up one.
Some hikers on the cliff above.
The Channel Islands has a lot of kelp which needs rich nutrients to survive. In the post about San Elijo State Beach, I mentioned how the air sacs keep the photosynthesizing parts close to the sun. Here you can see it being lifted up by the air.
Perhaps one of the most exciting things we saw were bat rays.
Looking for food.
Fish and the kelp forest.
After a long interesting day we were sad to return to the harbor around 6 pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment