The Channel Islands are made up of eight islands and the National Park Service encompasses five of those. The islands are home to the largest breeding colonies of seabirds in southern California. They also supply 9-12% of the 300 million pounds of seafood harvested annually from the entire state of California. Also, like the Galapagos Islands of South America, the Channel Islands exist in isolation, harboring the existence of 145 endemic species.
Brian and I took the 10am ferry over to the closest island, Anacapa Island, to camp for the night. The 12 mile, 1 hour ferry ride was a joy. We had beautiful weather and perfect seas. Anacapa has the largest brown pelican rookery in the United States. We also saw copious gulls and peregrine falcons. The boat landing was our only access to open water. You might think that being on an island you could just walk down the beach at anytime but these islands are products of upwelling and movement of plate tectonics, leaving high rocky cliffs. We clambered up the stairs with all our gear and found our way to the primitive campsites. Good thing we had plenty of water because there is none to be found on this island, neither was shade. We found solace in the ocean snorkeling around with some left over gear that the park ranger offered to us. The visibility was perfectly clear and we could see 30’ down to the bottom. We swam through the kelp forests and encountered sea lions, urchins and various colorful fish. We even saw a sea turtle from the look-out above.
Once the sun set, the temperature was fantastic. We played cards and had chicken noodle soup and croissants for dinner. We hit the sleeping bags pretty early because I wanted to get up in the middle of the night to try to get some starry night shots. Sidenote: Brian bought me a new camera for my 30th birthday. It is a Canon 5D Mark III and it is bad-ass. I feel like I have upgraded from a Toyota Corolla to a Ferrari. I didn’t get great shots but we got up again for sunrise and got some really cool shots of the sun coming up over the lighthouse.
We took the ferry back at noon after we packed up and had a morning swim. Now we are heading north on route 101 and it couldn’t feel better.
We also just realized that exactly one year ago today was when we hit the road for the first time on our way up north to Vermont to kick off our country wide road trip. Whoa.
Anacapa Island
Next Stop: Paso Robles, CA (wine country!)
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