Santa Cruz Island Adventures

For my last full weekend in California, I decided to head to the Channel Islands, Santa Cruz Island to be specific. I was torn between exploring the Channel Islands or Catalina Island. There is diverse flora and fauna on both, but decided I would go to the more remote, undeveloped Channel Islands. I chose Santa Cruz Island because it's the biggest island off the coast of California and had the most trails to chose from. At first, there was a group of work people going to join me, but being it was the last weekend here and the steep $80 boat ride over there, it turned out being just me. We all know I don't mind camping by myself. In all actuality, I was looking forward to the peace and quite of being by myself and enjoying the last bit of my time here in southern California.

The ride over to the island was a bit choppy, but we did spot a teenage whale (cool!). We weren't just traveling with human passengers, we also had five baby sea lions that were being rehabilitated somewhere near Ventura. They were being carried in dog crates and we were supposed to drop them back into the ocean near Smugglers Cove. A few of them jumped right in, but two of them, were hanging of for dear life. They did not want to go back into the wild. It was so cute to see those guys, and way cool to see them being reintroduced into their natural environment.

After dropping off the sea lions, we finally made it to Prisoners Harbor, my home for the night. I quickly carried my stuff to the campsite, set up camp, and what did I see? An island fox, found only on the Channel Islands. It was sniffing around a few campsites. They area about a third smaller than your average fox and ten times cuter. They were almost extinct a twenty years ago when the golden eagle hunted them to extinction. The park was able to relocate the golden eagles and gradually bring back this cute little guy.




Finally all set up, I took off towards Smugglers Cove, my trail run destination. A few of you know I have been training for the Smoky Mountain Relay, coming up in less than two weeks in Asheville, NC. Instead of hiking on the island, I knew I needed to complete at least one long trail run. The scenery and trail condition didn't disappoint. The climb up out of Prisoners was pretty brutal, but not as much as the descent and ascent into/out of Smugglers Cove. Definitely burnt some calories there. The scenery was well worth the strain. A few day hikers looked at me like I was crazy, but I had the best time seeing the island this way. When you don't have much time to see an entire island, jogging definitely increases the surface area in which you can see.
 

After getting back from my (almost) 8 mile trail run, I downed a quick lunch and tried my hand at snorkeling. The ocean had other ideas. I got the shit beat out of me trying to snorkel with the tide coming in and the gale force winds surrounding the islands. I tried for about an hour, looked like an idiot, and called it quits. Between the trail run, and the the "snorkeling," I was pretty much done for the day. I did try one last hike before calling it quits for the evening - Cavern Point. It was an easy two-miler, but crazy windy. Check out this video to get a feel for how windy it really was. I could barely stand up without being blown over.
Soon after, I retired to the campground for a thru-hiker dinner and some white wine from a box (we all know I'm classy!).

I woke up Sunday morning anxious to get in a hike or two. Because of the wind, the island shuttle service was asking us all to leave around 11:30 am instead of 4 pm. I quickly packed up camp and took off on a 5-miler to Potato Cove. I'm glad I did because it was a really neat area. The water was this crazy teal green/blue. I enjoyed my last bit of scenery before heading back to the boat landing. All in all, a successful trip, and a great last full weekend in California.