Tag archives: Channel Islands

A half mile up Scorpion Canyon on Santa Cruz Island, I could hear the deep barks and bellows of raucous California sea lions. Their symphony of bawls carried beneath the low canopy of dewy fog hovering above the Santa Barbara Channel, and the Channel Islands National Park. It was 4 am, and as time crept toward […]

The Channel Islands YMCA has appointed Ryan Power as the new Executive Director of the Montecito Family YMCA. Power brings a breadth of experience in recreational management, having worked as the General Manager at La Costa Beach & Tennis Club, the Operations Manager at Pierpont Racquet Club, and leadership positions with the City of Ventura, […]

The Channel Islands National Park has always been a haven for migratory birds needing a rest, especially during and following big windstorms. From my kayak, I’m always keeping an eye out for any seafaring feathers that might be out of the ordinary. Seabirds like Pacific loons are on my radar come spring, big northwest winds […]

‘The Devil in My Friend’ by Ivor Davis Malibu has been called a colony, an enclave, and several other things along an overwrought continuum that can stray into bad poetry. The very idea of Malibu can be so frankly dazzling it beggars reliable description, this macabre strip of trillion-dollar stilted waterfront huts peopled by reclusive […]

The Channel Islands National Park has more sea caves documented than anywhere else in the world, with close to 300 grottos. However, there isn’t a toothy grotto quite like the geological feature that’s wave-battered into the sheer, 200-foot-tall cliffs of West Anacapa Island. As I kayaked inside the dark, dank sea cave at dawn, I […]

During the fall, when it’s hot and dry on the southeast end of Santa Cruz Island, cold, crisp, purple grapes are a must-have fruit on the largest isle off the California coast. It’s also a time for annoying, seemingly perpetual deer flies that seek moisture out of the ears, nose, and eyes. To momentarily escape […]

It was getting dark, and I was tired and hungry. It had been a long, great day, but I needed to land my kayak for the night. The day had begun at Yellowbanks on the southeast fringe of Santa Cruz Island. From there, I paddled the entire south side of the largest, most diversified isle […]

The mud was something to behold. However, the narrow, serpentine-like side canyons of Scorpion Canyon were green, lush, and oozing with moisture. The many rushing waterfalls were perpetually soothing as water flowed uninhibited to the main canyon carrying that aquatic melody to the cobbled shoreline at Scorpion Anchorage. It felt like I was experiencing my […]

Westmont biologist Amanda Sparkman (’03) and her research collaborators have won a two-million-dollar, four-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue investigating the evolution of dwarfism in Channel Islands National Park reptiles.  The study focuses on five species, including the gopher snake, western yellow-bellied racer, southern alligator lizard, western fence lizard, and side-blotched […]

After a four-year hiatus, the Santa Barbara Channelkeeper organization held its signature fundraiser, The Blue Water Ball, on May 7 at the Santa Barbara Cabrillo Pavilion Ballroom overlooking our beautiful ocean, coast, and view of the SB Channel Islands. The sold-out event of all things blue had guests in ocean-inspired attire. Dinner tables sported seafaring […]

As I do most days after leading a kayak tour at Scorpion Anchorage on Santa Cruz Island, I took a stroll with my camera after everyone had left the island and returned to the harbor in Ventura. As small waves crashed on the deserted, cobbled shoreline, I noticed something odd approaching the beach just before […]

The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County has given us an amazing Valentine’s Day gift. A thousand red roses could not compete with the nearly 50 verdant acres the Trust has just added to its Arroyo Hondo Preserve. Since the Preserve’s founding in 2001, more than 1,600 visitors have walked its trails and 26,000 students […]

I was on an early morning beach run in Carpinteria, pink and orange hues melding across the eastern horizon. While weaving my way in soft sand past wintering killdeer and western snowy plovers, those hardy shorebirds thoroughly enjoyed the wrack lines of tattered giant bladder kelp left behind by the previous high tide. Later that […]

In her new book How to Stand Up to a Dictator, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa expresses the fear that the world is “in the last two minutes of democracy” and wonders if we’re at the tipping point for democracy, or fascism. Ressa discusses the story of how democracy dies by a thousand […]

We hugged the crumbly west cliff face of Cuyler Harbor on San Miguel Island with no expectations from the seat of our kayaks. From afar, we couldn’t see any wildlife, but we could clearly hear first-year northern elephant seals snorting and bellowing on distant pocket beaches concealed along the rocky shoreline. I was paddling with […]

Descending San Miguel Hill at a feverish pace, I’d just left a freshly soddened Green Mountain to the west in my rearview mirror. San Miguel Island always delivering a diverse mix of unpredictable weather patterns. Green Mountain was cloaked in dewy fog and swept in 20 mph northwest winds. It felt like sideways rain as […]

The weather window was tight. It was one day, and we took advantage of it, circumnavigating the 27 coastal miles of San Miguel Island, the most northwesterly isle in the Channel Islands National Park. After several solo circumnavigations of this wave-battered, teeming islet, I was gratefully joined by four kayak guides who I work with […]

It’s just one of so many countless hidden nooks and crannies carved out over time by volcanic upheaval, the surf, and weather along the craggy coastlines of the Channel Islands National Park. Most of these concealed, volcanic alcoves, corridors, and toothy grottos are only accessible by kayak. Going on foot or even by boat won’t […]