An Adventure for 2, Part II: Anacapa Island

After our first great day in California and taking in some mountains and stunning Sequoia trees, we made it to Oxnard, California, and our hotel for a few brief hours of rest before we headed to Island Packers at the Channel Islands Harbor to board the boat that would take us to East Anacapa Island of the Channel Islands National Park. 

As I mentioned before, I've watched the live cam from this island for a couple of years and I've wanted to hike on it for just as long. I was so excited to be able to do that! 

Let me start by saying that Island Packers was just great. Our ship, the Vanguard, was well-maintained and fun.

The Vanguard pulling into the harbor ready to pick us up.

I felt very safe the whole time. The captain was knowledgeable and safe and full of information as was the rest of the crew. I've never been on a boat that large or on the open ocean before. I wasn't sure that I'd not be seasick, but I commandeered the spot right on the bow - front and center! - and didn't move the whole way to and from the island. The cool salty breeze in my face, nothing obstructing my view, and I was A-OK even when we hit the very large wake of an enormous cargo tanker headed to Asia. It was like a very extreme rollercoaster. (I did not even try to get a picture of that ship, but I know that Toby did. I will link back to his pics when he posts them. It was huge. I can't even describe the enormity of it. From a distance, I really thought it was an island itself!) 

Time to board!

This was my spot. 

And, we're off! 

The jetties protecting the harbor. 

We're about to leave the safety of the harbor for the open ocean - very excited!

Drilling rig not too far outside the harbor but in pretty deep water.

We saw some "common dolphins" on the way, but they are hard to photograph. I did take a small video, but you can't see them very well. I left serious attempts to photograph them to Toby who found it quite challenging. They are very fast and dip into the deep water. You almost have to hang off the side of the boat to get a pic. We saw some seals and sea lions along the way as well. Alas, no whales. Darn.

Here's my video of the dolphins:

Getting closer!

We arrived at Anacapa and got off the boat onto what looked more like a fire escape from an apartment building in New York City than anything else. I'd read and watched videos of the day hike here so I knew what to expect. There were some 157 stairs to climb and that was no sweat. The island has sheer cliffs. It does not have sandy beaches that you can go from to the top of it. The only way up is by these stairs.

The landing.

We'd all gotten off the boat and this is a look at how we did it. The boat backs up against the edge and there is a metal ladder. You have to carefully make the transition from the slightly moving boat onto the metal ladder. They help you, but you need some coordination. One crew member told us that at least one person had died making this transition when the Parks Service handled the transportation. They think he had a heart attack at that moment. He'd been scuba diving all day. Anyway, if you slip, you get sucked under the boat into the blades of the motor. They have to keep the boat motors going and gently backing up into the dock to keep it in place. The water was relatively calm, but it does move. It is the ocean, after all. If the water is choppy, they won't attempt it for obvious reasons. 

A few of the stairs once we were at the foot of them. 

Our boat moored waiting for us. Later in the day, I saw it causing around the island. I wish we'd been able to do that as well. There was so much more I wanted to see! 

Once on the island, we had a bit of an orientation by one of our crew members who would be staying on the island with us while the others stayed on that boat, then we were off! One of the first pics I took was the view that I see from the live cam. I was now looking at it live and in person!

This is always my one of favorite views. I love that cave and I love it when the waves are stormy against the rocks. All that white...yeah, it's bird poop. But nature being what it is, when the rains come  and wash it into the ocean, it feeds the very large kelp forests there which, in turn, provide food and habitat for the wildlife. 

My absolute favorite view - the lighthouse and the cave. 

The extremely environmentally important kelp forest.

The lighthouse on the hill.

 

My favorites in one pic! 

The island itself is not that large and there are some 2 miles of trails among the vast open space just covered with seagulls. I. Mean. COVERED. With. Seagulls!!!!! I knew it was a bird sanctuary and I knew there were a lot of birds, but I was just not prepared to see them everywhere and on everything.

Here's a video of the beginning of our hike:

Look closely and you can see birds everywhere. The seagulls are not just white, but they have baby seagulls - well, probably more adolescent - that are grayish and really blend in with the ground. They are often in pairs. We were told that they are very territorial and that this would be like a National Geographic film. If a baby strays into territory that is not it's own, the adult seagulls will peck it - to death. We were warned not to intervene and leave the dead or injured birds alone. I did not have to be warned. I'm just a visitor here. Nature is cruel and beautiful and we must respect it. It's that way for a purpose. Still, it was a bit sad to see the number of dead birds and fairly beaten up ones. Yikes! 

Gulls! 

Again, look closely and you see gulls everywhere with the lighthouse and my other favorites from the live cam.

I liked this shot. Lots of gulls. Those white dots on the hill? Gulls! 

I forget what these yellow flowers were called but they were pretty and all over the island. I was not prepared for as much vegetation as was there especially in the middle of summer. I'd heard about beautiful spring flowers, but there was a great deal to see even now! I was so very pleased! 

You can see a great number of gulls here with the yellow flowers and the faint outline of islands in the distance.

Toby getting all the good shots he can. He was so in his element!

On our way to get as close as we can to the lighthouse. 

We're getting closer. There was this grove of what looked like roses to our left. I'm not sure what they were but they were pretty and thriving. Gulls were everywhere in them. They nest on the ground and I'm sure this was prime territory. 

Well, this was as far as we could go. Now, of course, we saw others risking permanent hearing impairment, but I need my hearing and I'm a rule follower. I liked this pic of the gull posing on the sign with the lighthouse in the background. 

We headed back down the trail and went to the house on the island to sign the guest book. The comments there were hilarious. Toby got some great shots of that and I'll link to them when he posts his Anacapa pics on his blog. You got a real sense of the amount of bird poop when you see the picnic tables. They have these slowly rotating arms on them to gently shoo the birds away. It does not seem all that effective. I ate my lunch on the dirt that I'd cleared with my hiking boot and sat on my jacket. I'm not complaining - I was loving it - I was just not sitting on it. I was glad I brought my light weight rain coat and hat. For bird poop falling from the sky and the occasional dive-bombing incident, as well as the weather. I was only slightly dive-bombed once. I managed to stay poop free all day. I think that was really an accomplishment! I apparently didn't take any pics of this area. Toby did. Stay tuned...

Next, we headed to the other end of the island, the northern and western end which is not part of the live cam. What a treat this was! Oh my goodness was it beautiful! There is a slight ridge that seems to separate the island a bit - like a mini continental divide. On the other side of it, everything seems prettier. There were more and brighter flowers, you had more views of the open ocean and other islands, and lots of waves hitting the shores. Oh! And sea lions! So many of those wherever there was a beach!

First, along the way here we saw - and heard - the sea lions and waves. I LOVE the sounds of the waves rushing onto the rocky shores. I took a number of videos along the way.

I also took some stills where I tried hard to capture the splash of the waves at their peak.

Looking at the sheer drop off is impressive. It's a bit scary, too. You don't get too close to the edge because these rocks are very crumbly. 

How beautiful is that? I could watch it all day. I wish they had a live cam on this side. In fact, I suggested that to one of our crew members. 

This was a fun area to watch for a while. 

I went on ahead to discover and explore the next area. But one thing I try to remember to do is to look behind me. Things can have an entirely different perspective. Of course, I wanted to get a pic of Toby taking pics. We now take pics of each other taking pics of each other. 

This seagull claimed his own rock with perhaps the best view on the island. 

I could not tell if the tide was coming in or going out. But it was very active for a while. We sat here and ate our power bars and drank some water.

The younger seagulls - in a pair - with a great view as well. 

That's our ship, the Vanguard, taking a cruise around the island. 

 

Just look at this! I mean....what can I say? It's just gorgeous! Look closely. Those are sea lions "sunning" on the beach. They were audible, as you can hear in the video I took.

This next set was taken looking west toward the rest of Anacapa Island. It's actually one large island in three parts - East (the only part you are allowed to hike on), Middle, and West. I can't be certain that we're not looking at the other islands as well there.

Some of my videos of the waves crashing was taken of the area at the bottom of this shot. 

It was sort of foggy and even misty at times, although it did get warm for a bit and the sun got brighter but the clouds never parted. I love the varied terrain in this shot. Despite the clouds and fog - don't ask me how - but we managed to get terrible sunburns! I've seen a lot of sun in my days, but this was my worst sunburn ever. By Far. It took me the rest of the week to recover from it. I'm still baffled as to how that happened. 

I love this shot of Toby taking pics with the islands and Pacific Ocean in the background. 

Here's another angle. I liked this one as well.

While we were sitting and eating our lunch, Toby made friends with a lizard who was really a model. Literally. He kept coming back for more and posing for Toby.

Look how perfectly he camouflages with the rocks!

I don't know how many pics Toby got, but the lizard came back at least three times. He'd go into the surrounding bushes and then reappear and look directly at us! 

It's tempting to just keep pushing on to make sure you see everything, but you do need to stop and just take it all in once in a while. We probably stayed here for an hour. I took most of the videos of the waves here and just sat there staring at them. It was nice.

Before leaving our sport, we saw some kayakers below us. You can book tours that do that. Look at how their kayaks and the flowers are little pops of color in an otherwise pretty neutral land/seascape. I like that. 

After we'd rested and taken a little time to just enjoy our very unique surroundings, we finished the trails. We were in for even more beauty!

This was the really pretty side I mentioned earlier. So many more flowers and ground cover. And lots of birds still!

Look at the gorgeous color! From the coral and yellow flowers to the really small ones and the succulent ground cover. Really just spectacular. 

I've never been to the Highlands of Scotland - but this reminded me of that based on the pictures I've seen. Maybe not as verdant, but the idea seemed quite similar to me.

This is that ridge I mentioned. I really was a line of demarcation for the two parts of the island, at least in our opinion.

The paths are well-worn but rather narrow. And you are to stay on them. It's easy to see how stepping off them would completely destroy the habitat here. It reminded me of the care you need to take when hiking in the tundra, as I've had opportunity to do twice up in the Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park, Colorado. 

The island seems fairly level when you approach it, but it's actually rather hilly.

By now we'd circled around to the southwest side (facing California which we could not see given the fog and clouds). The water was calmer on this side. And, there were yet more sea lions.

This was another change in the scenery; similar yet different. This would be looking north with California to our right.

Still a number of flowers. Obviously, the edge here is unsafe. Very seldom did you see ropes or warnings like this at all. This is not your usual National Park where things are marked for your safety. We were warned about this during our orientation. This is quite rugged by most standards.

This view is from the same overlook but to the south and east. 

There is a bit more of a sandy area there than on the other side. I love the low clouds to our north. 

I took this one not for the sea lions at the bottom of it, but to try to get a sense of the texture of the cliffs.

Now it was time to be heading back. They were extremely strict about what time we needed to be back at the dock to board. Our tickets may have said we'd leave at 3:30, but they wanted us there by 3. I don't play around. They said they'd leave us. I was not about to find out.

Once we were back on the boat, the captain said we had time to go just a bit around the curve of the island. I was loving that. I had hoped they'd take us ALL the way around, but that's for another tour. It was great seeing these rock formations from yet another vantage point. I took a few stills and a short video and then my phone died, in some order like that. This is the first time I've ever used up my phone's entire battery by photography and videography. I had nothing left for the trip back. You'll have to see what Toby posts. When he does, I'll come back and update this post with links.

First, the video. Can you believe after those stern warnings, we were still two people short which was discovered after we'd left the dock? Yes, we went back for them. Geez.

It's just so spectacular from every angle. Again, I'm not sure what the tide situation was, but the sea was definitely becoming choppier. We dealt with a good bit of waves crashing into the boat on the way back and sea spray. By the time we got back to the harbor, we were pretty chilled. I was grateful I brought my rainproof windbreaker.

Another shot between waves.

This is the famous arch of the Channel Islands. It's an arches themed summer, apparently. We are actually going to Aches National Park soon and, come to find out, there are arches and canyons in a number of places we'll be driving by and through. But we started it with an arch on the ocean. That's pretty neat. 

I was enjoying watching the water. I love how aqua it looks with the white foam as it hits the rocks and then recedes. 

The waves were crashing over those rocks and completely covering them. 

I love rock formations of any kind. These are quite unique as they're volcanic rock. We'll be seeing a great number of other rock formations in the Southwest. Nature is so beautiful. 

Another of the arch.

Wider angle of the arch.

Leaving Anacapa. I was able to get this set though I had resumed my spot at the bow at the very front-most part of the boat - but we'd turned sideways to check out some Bottle Nose Dolphins. I let Toby get those, or try to. 

Getting further away. I think we're still looking at those dolphins. 

Further....

I zoomed in a bit but we were still further away. I wanted to get the sailboat.

The amount of time given on the island was plenty. You could take it all in and then some and yet you'd still get back to shore with enough time to have a nice dinner out. Or, in our case, grab dinner and then head to the hotel in Pasadena and try to catch up on sleep! By now, I'd had a mere 6 hours in the last 48 or so with a unprecedented amount of travel and hiking thrown in there. I was beyond done.

We had dinner at Lazy Dog, which was new to me, in Thousand Oaks, which was a really nice area. I'd like to have explored that a bit more. They had gluten free things there and some nice drinks. To be honest, I didn't care what we ate at this point. I was hungry, tired, and the extent of the latest sun damage to my skin was becoming quite apparent. I was both hot and cold. It's a weird feeling and it's hard to get comfortable. I needed a shower and a bed. That was soon to come.

My next and final post in this series will be highlights of the rest of our week, which was mostly work  (as it turned out, I had a lot of work, but I didn't mind) and lovely nights out.

I hope you enjoyed Part II, however. We have every intention and desire to go out again with our children. It's such a unique experience. Well worth it. If you get a chance, I highly recommend it.

Also, if you've read Part I, go back and read it again. I've updated it with new posts to Toby's blog and added some videos I took in Sequoia.

Thanks for reading!