Channel Islands National Park

Channel Islands isn't the first park we've visited that has been an expensive challenge to access. At least this one was located in sunny Southern California!

 

The Channel Islands are a group of eight islands off the coast of Southern California, five of which are in the National Park. (Mac users out there will recognize Catalina, which is one of the three that is not part of the park.)

Given the difficulty accessing the park (being a set of islands, it's only available by ferry), the best way to experience them is really by camping for a few nights. And even then you have to pick a single island. Camping wasn't an option for us, so we just had to make the most of our limited time.

We started the day early by driving the RV (a story for another post) to the port to board an 8:00 ferry for the 90 minute ride to Santa Cruz island, the largest of the eight.

It was a beautiful day, if a bit chilly at that time of morning. We saw a pod of dolphins on the way out, which thrilled the kids.

Upon arrival, we were debriefed by a ranger (don't litter, tread lightly, etc.) and then headed to check-in for a kayaking trip we had booked. There are numerous sea caves around the islands, and we thought it would be fun to shake things up and explore by sea instead of hiking (but we'd do that too).

Because we have an odd number, Asher went solo

The first lesson that we all quickly learned is that sea kayaking is hard! And the water was fairly calm for us. Our guide explained that we could grab a fistful of kelp to use as an anchor when we wanted to stay in one place. This worked well and helped save a bunch of energy that would otherwise be spent not crashing into walls.

We spent about an hour and a half venturing down the coast, stopping at 4 or 5 caves on the way. These caves are not full of formations. Think of them more as indentations in the rock that happen to be at water level. There isn't much to see in any of them (though there were seals nesting in one of the deeper ones).

Looking out from the deepest cave we navigated

The trip was split in half. It went one way down the coast, back to the starting point, and then the other way down the coast and back. Jordan and I opted out at the midpoint. She was worn out (any kayaking is tiring with short arms, sea kayaking that much more so) and my rear was done with the hard plastic seating. Julie, Asher, and Caleb continued on for the second half.

While the others continued their adventure at sea, Jordan and I had a picnic lunch at the island's campground. This campground is famous for island foxes, which are a bit smaller than mainland foxes (these were about the size of a house cat). We were told that we'd see all kinds of foxes, but given our track record of seeing wildlife on this trip (not great), we tried not to get our hopes up. Turns out you'd have to try hard not to see foxes at this place!

They were everywhere, and it quickly became apparent why they were at the campground. As hikers were out for the day, the foxes were rummaging through all of their belongings. We were warned about this by the ranger upon arrival, but I was skeptical that they were quite as smart as the ranger made them sound. Turns out, he was right. Jordan and I personally witnessed a fox open a backpack and pull out some clothing. After realizing it wasn't edible, he moved onto the next site.

After lunch, we took a hike up on the cliffs to see if we could see Julie and the boys out on the water. Turns out we were too late, we ran into them coming back down, having already returned their gear and changed.

After we were reunited, Julie and the boys ate a quick lunch and then the boys and I took off on a hike that Asher wanted to do. Jordan was more interested in staying with the foxes (she'll take animals over vistas any day of the week), so Julie stayed with her at the campground.

The boys and I didn't have much time before the return ferry (which is one you don't want to miss), so we hustled on our hike. But we did stop and take in a few magnificent views.

We ended our hike near the dock, where we met up with the girls for the return ferry home.

Like Isle Royale, we were disappointed that we didn't have more time on the island, especially given the beautiful weather. I'd love to go back someday and perhaps visit some of the lesser visited islands in the park, spending a night or two.