Channel Islands, California

 Monday, December 4, 2023

Channel Islands, California

The trip on Saturday to Los Angeles was uneventful, and I stayed Saturday night in Agoura Hills, near my sister Meg, her husband Richard, and their children and grandchildren.  Sunday morning, we all had brunch together, and with a gift from me, we made four new Buffalo Bills fans:

 Sunday afternoon we boarded the National Geographic Venture.  My cabin is lovely:

 

It has a generous sized bathroom and a small balcony.  We had the mandatory drill for just in case and as we ate dinner, we departed for the Channel Islands National Park.  After dinner there were some mandatory briefings and the plan for today was presented.  There will be five possible morning excursions.  If we want to take the rigorous hike, 7 miles with lots of elevation change, we will depart at 6:15 AM.  Otherwise, breakfast is a 7:30, and three more hikes will leave after breakfast, two to Cherry Canyon (one four miles and one 1.5 miles), another walk along the beach, and finally a zodiac ride around the island for non-hikers.  I signed up for the 1.5-mile hike. 

The ship holds 100 passengers, but it seems like there are only about 65 or 70 aboard.  There is an enormous National Geographic staff of naturalists and photographers, all of whom introduced themselves at the evening briefing.  I slept well, and left on the Zodiac with the people for the shorter hike.  We go ashore on Zodiacs:

 

 This National Park is the least visited of all the parks; it’s easy to see why.  Located way off the coast of California, there is no easy way to get here. 

Our visit today is to Santa Rosa Island, the second largest of the eight islands which make up the park

 

The islands were formed by the uplifting caused by tectonic plate shifts.  I know little about geology, but it looks intriguing:

 

 The park brochure said there were once mammoths here which swam the channel to get here.  The lack of forage led to the shrinkage of the mammoths, until they were a breed of pygmy mammoths.  Hmm.  Sounds like an oxymoron to me.

 Immediately we saw several very beautiful Toyon shrubs with loads of berries:

 

Our hike took up the Cherry Canyon trail

 

 There was an interesting plant unique to these islands called Giant Coreopsis:

 

There were fabulous lichens in purple, white, orange and yellow-green:

 

 We returned to the ship for lunch and took off for Mexico.  The afternoon brought multiple talks from naturalists, the most interesting being one on the technology of exploring the deep ocean with instruments which go down 6 km. routinely and can go as deep as the deepest trench, 12 km.  The photos were amazing.

 We had multiple schools of dolphin who rode the water alongside the bow of our ship.  It’s phenomenal to see—they barely have to work to go as fast as we are, as the water we displace carries them along with us.  The naturalist says they ride the bow wave for fun!  Click the little arrow:

 Cocktail hour starts shortly at 6:00 (all alcohol is free on board), dinner is at 7:00, and after there will be another presentation, this one on the Chumash who were the first peoples to settle these islands.

 More when I can.