Out to Sea

***I took over 800 photos on this trip- so many opportuinties!  I have narrowed it down to the bare minimum to tell our story, but there are still quite a few!! (around 60 or so)***

My father-in-law has had the privilege of working on the water, patrolling the Channel Islands for the last 27 years.  As his time with Fish & Game comes to an and, he gave his family an opportunity to "ride along" and see a "day in the life".  And what a day it was!  My cousin and her family had happened to pick this weekend to come for a visit, a stop over on their way to Disney for their girls first trip there.  Happily they were not only up for a side trip, they were thrilled for the opportunity.

The objective of the day was to make it out to The Painted Cave on Santa Cruz Island.  In all my years of sailing these local waters and weekend trips to Santa Cruz I have never had an opportunity to  see this spectacular cave.  It is the the longest sea cave in the world and quite possibly the largest.

We left Ventura Harbor around 9 am Sunday morning.  The first spot you are guaranteed to see some wildlife is the whistle buoy just outside the harbor.  It is nearly always full of sea lions.  They are really fun to see so close up, the kids like to "talk" to them, barking and waving as we circled the buoy. 

They always seem so relaxed piled on top of one another!

 I love the way they crank their heads back to look at you upside down. This guy kept peeking at us, chin held high.

 

As we left the sea lions behind it was not long before we saw the next bit  of wild life- dolphins!  Uncle Pat is doing his part in making sure we don't lose any kids off the back of the open ended boat!

This first group of dolphins were not particularly playful, but they did jump around a bit for us.

It is always fun to watch them swim in front of the boat- they are sooooo fast!

There is a very exclusive club that is on my Bucket List to join.  It is the All Eight Club Channel Islands.  To join you must have been on each of the 8 islands off the coast of California.  Photos or whitnesses are your proof.  I have been on 4 of the 8.  This is Ben's "proof" of making it on to Santa Cruz Island. 

Olivia had to take a break from the day's activities on her Nina's (godmother) lap.

She missed out on the shark sighting! 

We also ran into a number of sea lion parties.  Amazing that these big guys can jump out of the water so well!

Our first look at the Painted Cave.

Here is a picture of another large vessel (similar in size to the one we were on) for some perspective on just how big the cave is. 

Lt. Gampy is a very skilled boat Captian.  He backed his boat into the cave, and not just a little bit!

 Can you see why they call it a "painted" cave?

Next we got to go deeper into the cave on the skiff. 

The seas were very calm on this trip, a bounus when heading into the mouth of a sea cave!

More "painting" on the walls.

It was soooooooooooo dark in the cave.  We didn't have good flashlights, the spotlights on the boat were not working so we only had little tiny flashlight.  Made it hard to take photos, it was a struggle to trick the camera into setting off the flash (don't know how to manually set it off) and trying to let the shutter stay open  is not really an option in a moving raft!

Here is a look at what the walls looked like close up. It looked like a soft sea creature of some sort, but it was not at all soft!  Smooth hard rocks.

 

 

In the very back of the cave is a shelf full of sea lions.  These photos show more than we could see with our own eyes it was so dang dark.  We had to get sooooo close to these guys in order to get close enough to shine the little tiny flash light on them so that my camera could pick up on the light and fire off the flash. 

I

This photo really surprised me.  I used a program to lighten it up, in the untouched photo the entire left hand side is pitch black.  I had no idea that the cave went back farther still.

They were not entirely thrilled that we were invading their cave. 

Once we were lined up with the exit, Lt. Gampy put the pedal to the metal and we flew out of the cave!

We left the Painted Cave and much to our suprise the trip was not over.  Because the weather was so perfect, we continued up the coast of Santa Cuz, passed the island of Santa Rosa and headed for San Miguel.  Both Santa Rosa and San Miguel are on my list of islands that I still need to land on, but being so close to them was such a treat.  Actually this was the first time I had ever even laid eyes on San Miguel.  On our way out, we got our next wildlife treat....

THAR SHE BLOWS!

Yet another first for this salty old sailor, a humpback whale!!! I have only ever seen the Califonia Gray whale and I have been fortunate to see many of them in my life.  Seeing a humpback was so amazing.  We followed the pair for a few minutes.  They soon got tired of us and bid thier farewell . One of the two even gave us a little wave.

Um, excuse me Mr. Whale, you've got somethingon your.....

...oh never mind, Have a great day!

On to San Miguel - Cuyler Harbor here we come!

High speed "fly bys" on the skiff were thouroughly enjoyed by all!

Wish I could have got their faces too!

 

The Elephant Seals welcomed us.

(Yet another wild creature we could tick off for the trip)!

Hello there!

The one at the top of the photo was  tossing sand on his back.

A young male.  This guy is still small apparently.

If you have ever seen Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) you will recognize these trees.  They were planted here for the movie. 

It is always so great to see the once endangered Brown Pelican.(Tick off yet another wildlife sighting)

Did you know you can get dropped off on San Miguel and go hiking and camping.  Me thinks that this might be  the way to tick off a landing on San Mighel and cross off another island. 

Proof that I was in the harbor.

So was Ben.  :-)

The grown ups let their hairs blow in the wind!

The kids loved seeing us fly by!

Lt. Gampy taking our picture.  He is the original photographer of the family. 

This little guy was found when we brought up the anchor.

Ok, science time kids....time to try and ID this little guy.

Here is the traditional Lt. Gampy group photo.  There is not an occasion that passes with out one of these! Prince Island is in the background.

Goodbye beautiful Islands.  Time to head home.

Now these dolphins knew how to play, and they gave us such a show.  We had to have seen no less than 1000 on the way home.  Pod after pod, or maybe it was just one giant group, but there were an incredible amount of them.

WOW!

Not sure what this guy was doing- twisting?

 

So pretty...

Look a baby!

Perfect sunset....

Ventura Harbor welcomed us home.  A beautiful sight any time of day. 

Comments

[Mike Vales]

Thanks for taking the time to put this all together Shells, very entertaining!

[Laurie]

One word...awesome

[Diane Olsen]

Michelle, what an amazing trip your pictures are beautiful and I thank you for sharing them