Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in Gallery.
This part of the journal is a lot longer than the others, even though it only covers 3 days. This is because our 3-day kayaking trip to Channel Islands National Park turned out to be the most exciting highlight of this vacation.
Neither of us had ever been in a kayak before, so we decided to use a tour outfitter. Our trip was organized by the Santa Barbara Adventure Company. We paid SBACO, and then they purchased our ferry tickets, reserved our campsite in the National Park campground, and provided all of the kayaking and snorkeling gear we would need. They also rented us cooking equipment, including a stove. However, we brought along all of our own camping gear, including tent. We also had to provide all of our own food, since National Park concessionaires at this park are not allowed to provide any food.
Although we could have brought a lot more stuff (some other campers brought multiple coolers full of food), we decided to treat the entire thing like a backpacking trip. The main difference is that we packed the camping gear in Julie's big green Patagonia duffel bag rather than in a frame pack. We repacked the bags at the Motel 6 on Wednesday night to get things down to a single carry-on bag (one of the MEI "Europe bags" we usually travel with) plus the Patagonia duffel. That way, there would only be one bag for each of us to carry. For food, we brought along typical backpacking meals, including a bunch of dinners that we had originally dehydrated for our backpacking trip to Olympic National Park back in 2012.
We paid for a 3-day group tour with SBACO. However, due to the schedule we picked (Thursday-Friday-Saturday), we got an individual tour from our guide Landon all 3 days. If we had started on Saturday, we probably would have been with a group of 15-20 other people for the first day. However, we're likely to have gotten an individual tour for the other days, because apparently most people do a 1-day tour, and October is toward the end of the kayak season in the Channel Islands. (The guides say that December is actually quite nice, but no tourists are really interested by that late in the year.)
We had to be at the marina at 8:00am, so we packed the car and were out of the room a little after 7:00am. We walked across the parking lot and got breakfast at McDonald's, and then headed to the marina to catch the Island Packers ferry, a big catamaran.
At the marina, we initially couldn't find anyone to check in with for SBACO, but our guide Landon eventually found us. As it turned out, we were the only ones going out to the island with SBACO today. Landon helped us get our ferry tickets and gave us a plastic tub full of the kitchen gear that we had rented. A few minutes before the ferry left, we brought our camping gear to the dock and they loaded it below deck in a waterproof compartment.
The boat ride out to Santa Cruz Island was a little exciting. There was a small craft warning in effect for the channel, and right from the beginning we encountered swells as big as 6 feet. To start with, we stood outside along one railing, because it was more comfortable than trying to sit inside. Eventually, Ken went up to the front of the boat. That was like a roller-coaster, and Ken got completely drenched by one big wave. Julie didn't stay up front, because she was afraid of getting seasick if she did. There were three giggly 20-something girls at the front of the boat who never stopped laughing the entire way over. They turned out to be guides with one of the other outfitters, on "vacation" for a few days and showing their parents the National Park.
When the boat got to Santa Cruz Island (at Scorpion Ranch), all of the day-trip passengers got off first. Then, all of the camping passengers formed a bucket-brigade type line from the boat and down the dock to shore, to unload all of the camping gear. (Ken was right at the front of the line, handing stuff off the boat onto the dock.)
When all of the gear was unloaded, everyone had to go through a mandatory session with the National Park Rangers where they introduced us to all of the rules and regulations. After the introduction was done, we checked with the ranger to get our campsite, where we initially had some confusion since it wasn't in our name. When that was all sorted out, Landon helped us carry our gear over to the SBACO area of the beach where we could stash it for the day.
It turned out that Landon was fairly excited to have us for clients, because not that many people sign up for the 3-day tour. He fitted us out for helmets and wetsuits, and then gave us a general introduction to kayaking techniques and to procedures for the day (i.e. he always entered a cave first to check it out, etc.). Then, we carryed our double kayak down to the water and started our adventure.
After we got in the water, Landon watched us paddle near the beach just to check our technique. After he was satisfied, he took us along the shore and we went into our first of several caves. The waves were moderately large along shore, but not particularly scary. One of the smaller, narrower caves freaked Ken out a little when it started to suck us into it. (In retrospect, there was no danger, and this sort of thing would not have bothered us as much later in the trip when we had more experience.)
A little later, Landon decided that our kayak wasn't the proper size, so we went looking for another big SBACO group that was already out on the water, some sort of Boy Scout group. Apparently, that group had taken all of the XL-sized kayaks, leaving Landon with only one smaller kayak for us. We traded with some of the Boy Scouts to get the bigger kayak and longer paddles, which worked much better.
Once we settled into the new kayak, Landon took us out toward Scorpion Rock (a small island a little bit offshore) to show us a cave out there. As we got closer to it, the swells were visibly bigger. They looked huge as they broke around the outside of the island, and some were large enough that their tops were breaking into whitecaps. If Landon was in the trough ahead of us, we couldn't always see him, so we estimate the waves were 4-5' high most of the time.
As Ken looked at these waves, he could not believe Landon was taking us into them. He was envisioning the result in a canoe, which would not have been good. Instead, the kayak handled the waves with no drama at all. Yes, it took effort to paddle into the waves and keep us pointed in the right direction, but no we had no real concerns about capsizing. It was kind of an amazing revelation, and did a lot for our confidence.
Once we got to the outside of Scorpion Rock (looking into open water toward the California coast 25-30 miles away), Landon took us into a big cave. When we got inside, we looked ahead and saw a blue glow ahead of us under the water. The glow was from another entrance to the cave, which is completely covered at high water but passable at low water. Since we were at high water, all we saw was the glow of sunlight through the other side. It was amazing.
The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. We're not even entirely sure how long we were on the water, but it was probably about 90 minutes. We went into some more caves, and paddled around in the vicinity of the beach. When Landon asked us whether we were done for the day or wanted go further, we decided the better part of valor was to quit while we were still able to make the choice. We didn't want to be so worn out that we would have problems the next two days.
After we finished kayaking, Landon loaned us a cart to move our gear to our campsite, and we got the tent set up and everything squared away. The wind was blowing fairly strong at this point (gusts 25+ MPH) and some people's tents had already blown down. So, we were glad to have our little wind-proof Warmlite along. Each of the campsites has a big steel bear box just like the ones we used at Glacier National Park, except here they're used to keep foxes and the very large ravens from stealing the food. (As is typical of isolated islands, some of the animals are unusual; the foxes are a different species found only on the island and are smaller than mainland foxes, while the ravens are much larger than mainland ravens.)
Although there are lots of hiking trails in the National Park, we finally decided not to do any major hikes because we figured we'd be tiring ourselves out kayaking. So, we just walked down to the beach for a swim, which felt really good.
After swimming, we ate an early dinner, finishing up a little after dusk. We ended up cooking in the bear box for the empty campsite next to us, since the wind kept blowing out the rental stove. Once dinner was cleaned up, we took a stroll through the campground, and eventually walked down by the beach. When we got tired of that, we went back to the site and read for a while in the tent before going to bed.
Fortunately, by early morning (i.e. the 4:00am bathroom break), the wind had stopped and the campground was still and quiet. We got up early, intending to be on the water before 9:00am, because the forecast was for the wind and the waves to pick up again in the afternoon.
Our goal for the day was to paddle west to Potato Harbor, have lunch, and paddle back. Landon reminded us that we were doing "adventure by choice", so it was up to us what we did and we shouldn't feel any pressure from him.
The waves were still large, but not as large as yesterday. If yesterday was 4-5' with an occasional larger wave, then today was probably 3-4' with an occasional larger wave. Both of us felt pretty good and were not particularly sore, and we felt confident that we could handle the waves even for a longer duration.
As it turned out, we had reached Potato Harbor by 10:00am, which completely surprised Landon. We had figured out the knack of paddling efficiently, and were making good time, even with the big waves. We stopped for a snack at Potato Harbor and got out of the kayaks to walk a little along the shore (Landon took some pictures).
After we got back in our kayaks, we paddled out to a rock just outside the harbor to look at a sea lion rookery. As we got closer to the sea lions, they started barking a lot and eventually jumped into the water. However, Landon explained that while they're territorial on land, they're not territorial in the water. So, if they were swimming we had nothing to fear. We paddled around the outside of the rock to get a look from a different direction, and had probably the most magical experience of the entire trip: sea lions on that side had jumped off the rocks and were swimming around and under us. One of them even surfed down a wave a few feet away from us. It was amazing.
After finishing up with the sea lions, we continued west toward Coche Point. We made it most of the way, but knew we wouldn't make it all of the way, so we decided to get lunch before turning around. By this point, we were on a part of Santa Cruz Island that's much more fully exposed to the westerly wind and the associated waves. We decided to stop on a rocky beach, and with Landon's guidance we succesfully landed the kayak on the beach through the breaking surf. The trick is to time your landing with the low part of the wave (not the breaking top of a wave) and use your paddle like a rudder to keep yourself perpendicular to the waves.
We ate lunch sitting on a log near what turned out to be a sea lion carcass. After we ate, Landon went wandering and found a backbone and several skulls. When we felt rested, we prepared to leave, this time back out through the breaking surf. Landon talked us through the procedure, which ended with "and then paddle like mad!", and we made it. A few minutes later, when Landon had gotten his kayak in the water, we met up with him and started the slog back upwind and into the waves to get around the around the last point we had gone around. It was hard work.
The rest of the way back home, things got a little easier, because we were mostly paddling with the waves. We still had to put effort in to keep in the right direction, but at least we weren't fighting as hard. The waves felt a little bigger, and every so often one of them would break over the back quarter of the kayak and wash over Ken's waist. He was glad that he was wearing his wetsuit on his legs.
On the way back, Landon took us into several interesting caves. One was huge after we got through the initial entrance. When we got inside and looked back toward the entrance through dim and salt-filled air, we could see a train of four entire waves inside the cave and marching toward us! In another case, Landon talked us through the process of paddling through a "keyhole" in the rocks that is not always passable.
As we got closer to the beach, we started to get tired and sore, but we did eventually make it back without problems. However, when we pulled the kayak out of the water and onto the beach, it was really heavy. After taking the rest of our gear up to the SBACO area, Landon and Ken went to drain the kayak. It took forever for all of the water to drain out, so Landon went looking for a root cause. Ken found it — there was a crack in the cover in front of his seat. Every time a wave crashed over Ken's waist on the return half of the trip, some of the water ended up inside the kayak. It's not hard to imagine that we could have been carrying around 80 extra pounds of water. No wonder we were tired!
Once we got the kayak sorted out, Landon told us that he had been able to take us further that day than he had ever taken a client before — a testament to efficient paddling. We felt good about that. We were on the water about 5 hours, from 9:00am to 2:00pm and covered a pretty good distance during that time.
We dropped our stuff off at the campsite, had a snack, and then went back down to the beach to borrow some snorkeling equipment from SBACO. We tried snorkeling off the beach and under the ferry dock, where Landon had suggested there was interesting stuff to look at. Ken did not like snorkeling too much, and eventually just swam while wearing the mask but holding his breath. Julie did slightly better but still had trouble keeping water out of the snorkel. It was neat to see the kelp swaying and the fish, which looked much like the displays we had seen at the California Science Center.
After we tired of snorkeling/swimming, we cleaned up, changed into dry clothes, and took another stroll before dinner. This time, we walked 15-20 minutes out on one of the trails out into the center of the island before turning back. Then, we spent a little time in the tent getting things cleaned up and ready to break camp the next morning. We made dinner a little earlier than the night before (to be done before dark) and then went for another walk again after dinner. Both of us were fairly tired, so we went to bed early.
We ate breakfast, broke camp, and were down at the beach around 9:00am.
Before we headed out, Landon offered to just take us somewhere close for some more snorkeling instead of an aggressive longer-distance paddle. He was a little surprised that we still wanted to paddle, since apparently most people who do a 3-day tour don't understand what they're getting themselves into and are pretty much worn out by the start of the third day. (In fact, after we got back, Landon had a discussion with the other guides, and none of them could remember anyone in the last few years actually kayaking all 3 days of a 3-day tour. That made us feel good.)
For today, Landon's 17-year old friend Abby, an aspiring kayak guide, joined us for the day. Abby was really strong and Landon didn't have to worry about her capabilities, so we still got basically an entire day to whatever we wanted to do.
Our goal for the day was to travel toward Smuggler's Cove, on the south side of the island. This was another fairly aggressive goal. However, with the waves so much smaller (only about 1' at most), we knew that we would have an easier day.
The first thing we did was to go through the large cave on Scorpion Rock, which we had done the first day. Today, we were paddling at low water, so the second entrance to the cave was open to the air. With some careful paddling, we were able to go in one side of the cave and out the other side. That was fun. Then, Landon taught us how to go through some shallows between rocks, by timing the waves so we would be pushed through.
After going through the caves, we continued on toward Smuggler's Cove. Ken enjoyed paddling by all of the sailboats that had anchored off the island on Friday night.
Once we got to the south end of Santa Cruz Island, there weren't really too many caves to look in. This is because the prevailing westerly wind causes a lot more erosion on the west-facing sides of the island than on the south-facing sides. However, nearby Scorpion Cove, we were able to get up close to a blow hole, and Landon used his waterproof camera to get some pictures of Abby right inside the breaking surf near it.
We made it to our goal of Smugger's Cove by mid-morning, too early to call it a day and turn back. So, we got out of the kayaks and took a break. Smuggler's Cove is the terminus for some of the hiking trails that cross the island from Scorpion Ranch, so there are picnic tables and pit toilets there. We ate a snack and talked with some sufers and also with some hikers who had left the campground about when we had left the beach.
When we were rested, we put the kayaks back in the water and paddled toward Yellow Banks. At Yellow Banks, we would be able to see along the whole south side of the island. Landon said that it was a nice view, so that was our new goal. When we reached Yellow Banks, we turned around and headed back for home. On the way, we took some pictures.
At some point in here, Landon realized that we were actually going to stop for lunch at Yellow Banks, but he had forgotten. (We were wondering when he was going to get hungry.) So, we decided to pull into a small cove north of Smuggler's Cove to have lunch. It was a beautiful spot for a break, with the surf crashing and then rolling down the rocks. After we ate, Abby went exploring in the rocks and looked in several caves, but Ken and Julie decided not to follow.
By this point, it was time to start heading back, so we put the kayaks in the water and started the long paddle back home. The wind had changed a little and the waves were a little bigger (maybe 2' by the time we finished), so the trip back was more work than the trip out. Fortunately, the kayak was not full of water, and Ken's seating position was also better.
Lobster season had just opened on the island, and part-way back Landon and Abby saw one of their friends in a big fishing boat, so they paddled over to say hi. Their friend was harrassing them about their bright yellow kayaks. Apparently, he was somewhere else up the coast a few weeks ago fishing in his bright yellow kayak when a great white shark bit the front off it. Now he swears he'll never use a bright yellow kayak again, although Landon thinks the problem was more with all the fish tied onto his kayak than its color. (Julie asked — out of curiousity, not fear — and learned that no guide has ever seen a great white shark near the Channel Islands)
When we got back to the beach, we had to land the kayak in the surf again. This time, Ken wasn't really paying attention and timed it wrong, so we partially dumped the boat. However, Landon said it counted as success if we didn't fall out. (He also said that he could have prevented it, but figured that we were at the point where we needed to figure it out for ourselves; fair enough.) We ended up being on the water about 5 hours again — 9:20am to around 2:10pm.
After getting all of the kayak stuff put away, we were mostly tired, but not sore. So we decided to go for a swim. After we finished swimming, we changed into our clean, non-salty shore clothes. The park was a lot more crowded today than it had been the other days (it was Saturday) and so we actually had to contend with a line at both the bathroom and the changing rooms. Fortunately, we timed things well and the line was longer when we got out than when we went in. A lot of the day-trippers seemed to have come to the island with nothing other than a swimsuit, towel, and cooler full of beer. After we finished changing, the boat was a little late, so we took one last walk through the campground to kill some time.
The ride back home was much calmer than the ride out had been, but took about as long. When we got to shore, we hauled our stuff to the car and then set out to find the Marriott, which Ken had paid for using points from all the weeks he spent in Atlanta in 2014.
Once in the room, we both got a hot shower, and then started rinsing the salt out of all the wet gear. When that was done, we left it hanging in the tub and headed back to the Ventura city center for dinner. After getting back to the hotel, we discovered that the hotel had a coin laundry that we could have used rather than rinsing our stuff in the tub. So, we packed it all up (including all of the other dirty clothes) and Ken stayed up late to get it all washed and dried. We didn't bother to put any of it away before going to bed, through.