Wildlife Extravaganza
I needed a break, and I knew it. Between audit preparations in day-job land and the online class I'm doing at home, I needed a day to get away from everything. So a couple of weeks ago, I booked another trip to Santa Cruz Island - my third one, only this time I'd be going to Prisoners Harbor, on the border between the National Park side and the Nature Conservancy side of the island. Fewer people go there, so it's a good spot for solo adventuring.
Things got off to a fast start, as we found a dogpile of sea lions on the buoy marking the Channel Islands Harbor entrance. Another sea lion wanted to join them, but couldn't find an open spot, and so it swam around the buoy barking loudly. After we left them, it wasn't long before we encountered several small groups of dolphins. Most swam by and went on their way, but a few came up to the front of the boat and briefly swam alongside. I was standing up in the bow, my preferred spot to prevent seasickness, so I got quite a show.
Speaking of seasickness, I overheard the family next to me talking about it worriedly, so I offered them some of the ginger chews I was carrying. They were visiting from Oxford, Mississippi, and the youngest boy had gotten sick just on the drive over from Grandma's house in Malibu. The parents and kids kept going back and forth between standing in the bow with me - where the youngest girl wanted to be - and going to the back. About halfway through the trip, the teenage girl came running forward to take me up on my ginger chews offer. I hope they helped.
We dropped most of the passengers off at Scorpion Anchorage, and then went around to Prisoners Harbor, named for a failed attempt by the Mexican government to use the island as a prison colony in 1830. Personally, I think they should go back to calling it Xaxas, the name of the Chumash village that used to be there. By the time the US took possession of California, the harbor had become the hub of the island's ranching business, and some of the old buildings are still there. I struck out on the old dirt Navy Road, trekking about five miles before I had to turn around and go back to catch the boat. A good sized complex of some kind, complete with antennas and its own water tower, was in view up the road. Today Google tells me it's a Navy instrumentation development facility.
On the way back, I left the Navy Road and took the side road down through the Del Norte campground, winding along the sides of canyons and through yellow fennel-covered fields. At one point, I came across an interesting looking tree and stopped to take a picture of it, only to realize that a Santa Cruz Island scrub jay was sitting in it. They don't get as much attention as the Island Fox, but they're endangered as well, so you don't see many of them.
At that point, though, I realized I was in trouble. I'd underestimated the trail, thinking - perhaps naively - that it would be as wide and easy as the Navy Road. It wasn't. It twisted through a couple more canyons, going up and down at steep angles. If you're a regular reader of my hiking write-ups, you'll know that this sort of thing is fairly routine for me, but this time I was racing the clock. I couldn't afford to backtrack, and I couldn't afford much rest time on the climbs, because if I wasn't back at the harbor in time I would miss my boat. There was nothing I could do but push myself forward. Fortunately, I got back just in time. I was the last passenger back onboard.
But before I walked back down the long, wide pier, the island had one more gift for me. As I finished shuffling the contents of my backpack around, I took one last look back and saw - an island fox! I hadn't seen one all day, although I'd seen plenty of fox droppings along the sides of the trails. (Apparently they're fond of these red berries I saw in a few spots.) The fox was looking curiously at a group of campers gathered there, and stayed just long enough for me to take a few photos. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought it knew I hadn't had a fox sighting yet and came out to say hello.
When we got back to Scorpion Anchorage, the family I'd met on the way out got back onboard. They'd gone kayaking along the shore, on a tour of the kelp beds and sea caves, and even the youngest of the kids had handled it well. I made a note of that for future reference, in case any nieces or nephews come out here to visit me. I'll bet it's cheaper than Disneyland.
On the trip back, we ran into more dolphins, three of which jumped out of the water together right in front of us. If you ask me, they were showing off for us. Then, just to make the day complete, a pair of blue whales surfaced and swam along with us for a little while before diving down to look for some krill. And best of all, I didn't get sick from the boat bobbing in the water as we watched them. I went through all the ginger chews I was carrying, but they paid off.
So today I've been back at work on the online class, and tomorrow it's back to audit preparations, but I'm definitely feeling recharged. There are still three weeks left in my class and seven weeks until the audit, so I'm sure I'll need at least one more break along the way. I hope it goes as well as this one.
Things got off to a fast start, as we found a dogpile of sea lions on the buoy marking the Channel Islands Harbor entrance. Another sea lion wanted to join them, but couldn't find an open spot, and so it swam around the buoy barking loudly. After we left them, it wasn't long before we encountered several small groups of dolphins. Most swam by and went on their way, but a few came up to the front of the boat and briefly swam alongside. I was standing up in the bow, my preferred spot to prevent seasickness, so I got quite a show.
Speaking of seasickness, I overheard the family next to me talking about it worriedly, so I offered them some of the ginger chews I was carrying. They were visiting from Oxford, Mississippi, and the youngest boy had gotten sick just on the drive over from Grandma's house in Malibu. The parents and kids kept going back and forth between standing in the bow with me - where the youngest girl wanted to be - and going to the back. About halfway through the trip, the teenage girl came running forward to take me up on my ginger chews offer. I hope they helped.
We dropped most of the passengers off at Scorpion Anchorage, and then went around to Prisoners Harbor, named for a failed attempt by the Mexican government to use the island as a prison colony in 1830. Personally, I think they should go back to calling it Xaxas, the name of the Chumash village that used to be there. By the time the US took possession of California, the harbor had become the hub of the island's ranching business, and some of the old buildings are still there. I struck out on the old dirt Navy Road, trekking about five miles before I had to turn around and go back to catch the boat. A good sized complex of some kind, complete with antennas and its own water tower, was in view up the road. Today Google tells me it's a Navy instrumentation development facility.
On the way back, I left the Navy Road and took the side road down through the Del Norte campground, winding along the sides of canyons and through yellow fennel-covered fields. At one point, I came across an interesting looking tree and stopped to take a picture of it, only to realize that a Santa Cruz Island scrub jay was sitting in it. They don't get as much attention as the Island Fox, but they're endangered as well, so you don't see many of them.
At that point, though, I realized I was in trouble. I'd underestimated the trail, thinking - perhaps naively - that it would be as wide and easy as the Navy Road. It wasn't. It twisted through a couple more canyons, going up and down at steep angles. If you're a regular reader of my hiking write-ups, you'll know that this sort of thing is fairly routine for me, but this time I was racing the clock. I couldn't afford to backtrack, and I couldn't afford much rest time on the climbs, because if I wasn't back at the harbor in time I would miss my boat. There was nothing I could do but push myself forward. Fortunately, I got back just in time. I was the last passenger back onboard.
But before I walked back down the long, wide pier, the island had one more gift for me. As I finished shuffling the contents of my backpack around, I took one last look back and saw - an island fox! I hadn't seen one all day, although I'd seen plenty of fox droppings along the sides of the trails. (Apparently they're fond of these red berries I saw in a few spots.) The fox was looking curiously at a group of campers gathered there, and stayed just long enough for me to take a few photos. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought it knew I hadn't had a fox sighting yet and came out to say hello.
When we got back to Scorpion Anchorage, the family I'd met on the way out got back onboard. They'd gone kayaking along the shore, on a tour of the kelp beds and sea caves, and even the youngest of the kids had handled it well. I made a note of that for future reference, in case any nieces or nephews come out here to visit me. I'll bet it's cheaper than Disneyland.
On the trip back, we ran into more dolphins, three of which jumped out of the water together right in front of us. If you ask me, they were showing off for us. Then, just to make the day complete, a pair of blue whales surfaced and swam along with us for a little while before diving down to look for some krill. And best of all, I didn't get sick from the boat bobbing in the water as we watched them. I went through all the ginger chews I was carrying, but they paid off.
So today I've been back at work on the online class, and tomorrow it's back to audit preparations, but I'm definitely feeling recharged. There are still three weeks left in my class and seven weeks until the audit, so I'm sure I'll need at least one more break along the way. I hope it goes as well as this one.
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