Escape Adventure—Exploring Santa Cruz Island 4:  9-10 April 2015
My oldest son Jack, who lives and works down in Orange County here in Southern California has been trying to participate in one of our adventures out to Santa Cruz Island for quite a while now and we finally were able to get our schedules to match on 9 and 10 April 2015.  We had planned to go the week before, but the weather was not good and although we probably could have sailed there, the wind and waves would have been such that it would be difficult to get ashore.  In addition, we were looking for weather conditions that would be conducive to anchoring on the north side of the island since we have anchored at most of the good anchorages on the south side.  So with favorable winds forecast for 9 and 10 April, Jack and his friend Chris Chavira came up the night before so we could get an early start on the 9th.  We slept on the boat that night so we all pretended we were in a harbor in some exotic place and watched the lights around the harbor and the boats go up and down the channel.  Jack and Chris didn't get to the marina until almost 11 PM so Elaine, Jay, Heather, Séamus (our dog) and I were ready to hit the sack when they finally arrived.

By 0730 the next morning we had checked all the instruments, made sure the radar was working, and warmed up the engines so we eased Escape away from the dock and headed out to sea.  I let Jack steer the boat out of the channel so I could divert my attention to getting the sails up.  Chris helped us get the fenders up on deck and kept an eye out for traffic as we approached the breakwater and the open sea.  The winds were light around 6 knots so we motor sailed towards Santa Cruz. With the port engine running at 2400 rpm and the sails up we were going about 4.5 knots on reasonably glassy seas.  
Once the sails were up and everything seemed to be under control, Jay started breakfast with bacon, eggs, coffee, and toast.  Chris added moral support through the back window (right).
As Jay was preparing breakfast I was on watch on the front deck because there is a big shipping lane that runs between the Channel Islands and the California coast.  I could see  a very large container ship approaching us and the compass heading to that tanker was staying pretty constant as we closed with it and that means we were on a collision course.  I went inside to check the chart 
plotter and sure enough the Automatic Information System (AIS) symbol for that ship was blinking red which means it's on a collision course with us.  I reached over and punched in a couple of degrees to port on the autopilot so that we would go slightly behind the big ship.  At the closest distance we got to the container ship I figured we were within 200 meters of it.  I later blew the picture of that ship up and calculated that it was carrying over 1000 shipping containers and the AIS indicated it was going over 17 knots.  In the daytime those big ships are pretty easy to spot unless it's foggy, but at night 

I'm really glad we have radar and AIS.  Once breakfast was over and the container ship had passed, Séamus and I took up our favorite spot on the front deck to watch for dolphins (see pic at right) and it wasn't long before a pod of them descended on Escape to swim along in front of the bows.   Here are a couple pictures of the dolphins swimming so effortlessly in front of us and you can see a couple movies of them at https://youtu.be/mfyyv16z0pk and at
https://youtu.be/cSuAUpWyhOw.  I'm not sure why you can't just click on these links, but if you cut and paste them into your browser, they will play for you and they're really fun to

watch.  These dolphins stayed with us for quite a while and seemed to be really enjoying themselves.  Elaine was convinced that if she sang to them that pods close to the boat would come over to investigate and would swim with us for a while.  Séamus was very excited and ran back and forth on the trampoline whenever the dolphins moved from one side of the boat to the other.  About the time the dolphins dissipated for the second time, Jack and Chris told me that they planned on camping out on the island and doing some hiking.  This was new news to me and required some quick rethinking of the plan I had 

in mind.  We were already headed for Pelican Bay, which is an anchorage that I hadn't stayed at before and which I wanted to explore on this expedition.  There are trails from Pelican Bay back towards Prisoner's Harbor  but no place to camp in between.  I knew there was a 
campground 
northeast of Prisoner's Harbor and from my chart plotter on the boat I could see that from Prisoner's Harbor to Smuggler's Cove was about ten miles.  Both Jack and Chris said they had hiked that distance several times already on previous camping trips so they were pretty psyched to get dropped off at Prisoner's Harbor 
and hike up over the spine of the island back to the southeastern end to Smuggler's Cove.  We considered Potato Harbor and dipped in to Chinese Harbor looking for trails from those 
anchorages up to the trail that traversed the spine
 of the island towards the east, thinking
 that if I could drop them off a little closer, they would have less distance to hike.  Unfortunately, the charts I have for sailing 
and navigating in the water aren't very useful for land navigation because they don't show any of the trails and no contour 
lines.  With our binoculars we didn't see any trails leading up from the beach at either of these two anchorages so we sailed on towards Prisoner's Harbor.  We had about an hour and a half before reaching Prisoner's so Elaine and 
Séamus took up observation positions to keep an eye out for dolphins or whales (above right) and Jack and Chris had another beer and relaxed on the trampoline to prepare for their long hike (see pics above left).  We got to Prisoner's Harbor about 1230  (above right) and Jay BBQed some bratwursts (pic at left) so Jack 

and Chris could eat before they set off.  
I dropped Jack and Chris off at Prisoner's Harbor with the dinghy around 1345 so they could start their hike and then sailed/motored over to Pelican Bay about a mile and a half east of Prisoner's.  We arrived at Pelican Bay at approximately 1415 and anchored in about 30' of water.  The whole bay seemed to be about that deep and we had to let out quite a bit of scope to be sure our anchor would stay dug in.  Here's a picture of our anchorage in Pelican Bay (pic at right) and you can see a 360˚ video of the Bay on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Cmbqc6gTY.  There were two other boats in the bay so we had to give them some space, but we still had a pretty good spot as you can see.  After I was sure our lines were secure I went ashore in my kayak and to hike the trail to Prisoner's Harbor and back.  If I'm going ashore alone, the kayak is now my weapon of choice because I can put my hiking boots, clothes, camera gear, and camel back in the water proof compartments and get ashore even with fairly big swells.  There's a small cove next to Pelican Bay that is too small to anchor in, but it has a better 
beach to land a dinghy or kayak on (see pic above right) and it has better access to the trail to Prisoner's Harbor.  Once I got my hiking boots on, I went up on the bluff between Pelican Bay and the little cove I was in just to be sure Escape was staying put and wasn't drifting towards the rocks.  As I hiked up the draw looking for a way to get up on the bluff, I saw this rock wall that clearly was man-made.  I'm always amazed that there's such a mix of wilderness and then all of a sudden some old indian paintings or remains of a ranch, or something else.  Once I got to the top, I could see Escape sitting peacefully in the Bay 
(see pic at right) so then I walked about 50 feet over to the east side of the bluff overlooking my kayak and took this picture of the north coast of Santa Cruz looking east towards Prisoner's Harbor (below right).  While I was up on the 
bluff I saw some wildflowers there so I took out my cell phone app to see if I could identify what 
they were.  I believe the one to the left here is a Jimson Weed but it could also be a Morning Glory and the one below is a young Yucca Plant.  It's hard to tell for sure because nothing looks exactly like the 10,000 plants in the app, but as time goes on I'll get better at identifying these plants and the critters I find as I wander the islands.  
As I dipped back down in the bay where I left the kayak and headed up the other side to get on the trail towards Prisoner's Harbor, I took one last look back to make sure Escape was secure (see above right) and through my binoculars I could 
see Elaine and Heather on the back deck having a good time.  I had been on this trail once before although I was going in reverse from how I had hiked it then.  This is a very pleasant hike and smells of pine forest.  Below left are a couple pictures showing you some vistas along the trail. Most of it is level going along undulating terrain with good views of the ocean, but there are also a few really steep traverses down into ravines and scrambles up the other side.  It's certainly best to do this hike with a friend just in case you slip on a rock or root and hurt yourself.  These islands are fairly remote so you're pretty much on your 
own out here. 
There was evidence of the pine beetle along the trail as you can see from the picture below right.  There are over 2000 plant and animal species on the islands,
of which 145 are found nowhere else in the world.  Along the path I saw this shrub
brush to the left, which I believe is manzanita.  You can see that the bark is smooth and red and the wood is very hard and heavy.

While we were on our way to Pelican Bay and I was out hiking, Jack and Chris had met up with a woman who was on the beach where I dropped them off and she pointed them toward the trail entrance to the camp ground at the top of the ridge.  It was about 4 miles from where I dropped them off to the campground and about a 900 foot elevation gain.  I had given them one of my hand-held VHF radios with a built-in GPS so we could stay in touch, but although they had the GPS, they didn't have a map so they didn't have any way of matching their coordinates with their position on the map.  Consequently, they missed the Del Norte Trail which leads to the camp ground and climbed up the road towards the Navy Base at around 1500 feet.  Here's a picture of the portion of the map they needed that I took from a couple of hikers I met the next day.

 As you can see from the map, they started at Prisoner's Harbor on the far left edge of the map, hiked up the trail and road to the Navy Base about 1/5th of the way from the left side of the map.   Just east of the Navy Base is where they ran out of daylight and had to set up camp (see pic below right).

 As you can see from the picture below left, they had a great view of the coast on the south side of the island, but they were about four miles west of where they thought they were.  I talked to them on the radio, but I also did not have a map of the trail network so couldn't advise them very well except to keep going east and call me in the morning.  That night we had delicious clam chowder on the boat and Jack and Chris had sausages and cheese wrapped in tortillas.  The next morning we fired up the engines on Escape around 0715 and pulled out of Pelican Bay to start sailing east around the east end of Santa Cruz towards Smuggler's Cove.  About 0730 we

talked to Jack on the radio and they were already on the trail heading east so it looked like the rendezvous at Smugglers Cove was going to work out.   Below right is a picture from Escape's cabin as we're nearing the northeast corner of Santa Cruz.  Shortly after taking that picture, Jack called again and said they were at a road junction and gave me their latitude and longitude and said they were bearing to the right on Loma Pelona Loop Road which they assumed would link them up with a road to Smuggler's Cove.  Since I didn't have a map with any of the trails on it, I assumed they knew where they were going and sailed on to Smuggler's Cove.

We arrived in Smugglers Cove about 0945 and anchored in 14' of water.  I didn't expect Jack and Chris for about another hour and a half so I put the kayak in the water and paddled out around the corner back towards where I had seen a boat with a diving flag on it about half a mile away.  Jay took Séamus on a paddle board ride and Elaine and Heather stayed on the boat to read.  I tried raising Jack on the radio when I got back to the boat, but was not able to make contact.  That was a bad sign because if they were still moving along the top of the ridge, they should have had good line-of-sight to our location and hence good 

contact.  Around 1130, which is when they thought would be the latest they would get to Smuggler's, I took the kayak ashore with my hiking gear and another hand-held radio and hiked up the trail towards the peak between Smuggler's Cove and Scorpion Anchorage and tried to raise them on the radio.  No luck!  I waited there for about an hour asking every hiker I saw if they had seen Jack and Chris along the trail but no one had.  Finally, I went back down to the boat in case they had diverted to Scorpion or some other landing so as soon as they called, we could hoist the anchor and go get them.  In the meantime, Jack and Chris were getting farther off course going south towards the south 
shore which is nothing but steep cliffs and bluffs into the sea.  
Two pictures above and right is a picture of the fire road they were hiking on when they left camp and directly above and right is a picture of the trail they took towards the south side of the island.
Just above is a picture of the trail kind of petering out as they 
got closer to the coast.  This should have been a good indicator that they were off the main trail and were about to get lost.  By this time, Jack had blisters on his feet and they were running low on water although they still had plenty of food.  They knew it was getting close to the time they were supposed to rendezvous with us and they thought that Smuggler's Cove was just down on the coast and maybe a little to the east so they pressed on.  To backtrack would have taken a tremendous effort to climb back up to the main road and probably another four or five hours to get to Smugglers Cove.  So, they pressed on.  Along the way they took this picture of these lupine flowers and eventually arrived at this precipitous drop 

to the ocean below.  After saying some serious prayers and telling each other how much they loved each other and what a pleasure it had been to be best friends for the past ten years, they started sliding down the incline on their butts and bracing themselves by hanging onto the brush as they went down.  It's about a 350' drop on either side of that nose going down to the sea and very crumbly so they were extremely lucky to get to the bottom without serious injury or worse.  Once at the bottom, they still couldn't see Escape or Smuggler's Cove so they started hiking along the beach, such as it was until about 45 minutes

later, they could go no farther—blocked by cliffs and the sea.  As luck would have it, however,
 there was a large boat named Peace just a couple hundred yards off shore that was a commercial dive boat that took scuba divers out for the day.  Jack and Chris noticed that the people on board had been watching them through binoculars as they slid down the incline and hiked along the shore so they started waving their arms and yelling to see if anyone would come get them and give them a ride to safety.  Immediately, the boat put their dinghy in the water and rescued Jack and Chris off the beach.  As I was returning from my own expedition to find the missing hikers, I took this picture (two pictures above and right) of Anacapa
from the top of the bluff at the east end of Santa Cruz Island and this picture of Escape sitting peacefully in Smuggler's Bay waiting for Jack and Chris to arrive.  I also saw this great display of sea shells and fantastic hiking stick like Moses would have used to part
the Red Sea.  I thought of trying it at least symbolically, but then decided against it and went to check out the old abandoned ranch house up the lane in the picture to the right.  The farm house itself is in the picture just below.  It isn't active any longer, but has been restored to the way it was when the sheep ranchers used it many years ago.  You can't go inside the building, but you can walk all around it.  As soon as I had checked out the old ranch house, I hurried back to the beach and put my clothes and camera gear back into the kayak to get back to Escape.  The surf had totally thrashed me coming in to the
beach so I was going to try a different technique getting back through the surf.  What I did was wade out to about thigh deep water and just waited patiently until the next wave came in, then plopped my kayak down, hopped on it and paddled like crazy to beat the next wave.  That worked really well.  Just as I was getting back to Escape Jay said that a boat had just called on the VHF radio that they had Jack and Chris on board and that they would be entering Smuggler's Cove in about ten minutes.  A couple minutes later, the boat Peace showed up (see above left), turned
around and lowered their dinghy with Jack and Chris and brought them safely over to Escape.  You can see a movie of them being delivered back to Escape, with their tails between their legs in shame for having been lost, but very happy to be alive and once again reunited with us.  The movie is at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaeJtkFkpko.
Well that's it for this adventure.  We hope to do a lot more of these types of adventures, i.e., sailing, hiking, and exploring, but next time whoever goes ashore will have a good map and compass and know how to use them.

Santa Cruz Island 3:  10-12 March 2015—We set out to continue our exploration of Santa Cruz Island on 10 March with a favorable weather forecast and we wanted to go now because it had recently rained and the islands were all green.  There
were reports that lots of wildflowers were also in bloom.  We wanted to get an early start on Tuesday morning, the 10th of March in order to take advantage of the favorable winds that would carry us to the islands so Monday night we slept on the boat.  By 0730 on the 10th we had checked out all the systems and were headed out of the harbor in medium fog (see pic at right).
We had about 6 knots of wind once we got out beyond the breakwater so we hoisted both sails on a port tack and kept one engine running at 2200 rpm.  With that setting we were able to maintain  5.2 knots towards the eastern tip of Santa Cruz Island.   By 1000 we could see Anacapa Isle through the fog and Séamus, our dog, was keeping a constant watch for dolphins off the bow of the boat (see pic at right).  By about 1130 we were passing between Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands and the wind completely died.  We furled the sales and throttled up to 2500 rpm on the port engine and sailed in to Coches Prietos at 5.8 to 6.1 knots.   We arrived at Coches Prietos at 1248 and anchored at high tide in 11 feet of water.  I went kayaking in my new Epic V6 kayak while Jay and Séamus went 
paddle boarding.  Here's a picture of me in the new kayak and of Escape anchored in Coches Prietos.  I first paddled ashore to practice my landings through the surf and then paddled all around Coches Prietos where the lobster pots were to see if I could see any lobsters in there, but I couldn't.  It was nice to be able to paddle around where there were lots of rocks without being worried about being hung up on them or bashing the dinghy motor on them.  Then I paddled over to the other side of the bay and out around the corner to Albert's Anchorage.  Albert's Anchorage is very similar to Coches Prietos, but it has a much smaller beach and 
doesn't offer quite as much protection from the wind and waves.  After we all got back on the boat, Jay made pulled pork, bean, and rice burritos for supper.  It was delicious.  
The next morning we got up around 0700 and made coffee and breakfast.  It was overcast so we stayed on the boat and read books until about 1000.  After that, I went out in the dinghy to work on the new method for anchoring the dinghy off shore.  The problem I've been having is that, with the motor on the dinghy, it's too heavy for one person to drag very far up the beach and if I leave it on the beach and the tide comes in, the waves really bash the dinghy or even swamp it.  The new method allows me to throw the dinghy anchor overboard when I'm still 30 to 40 feet from shore beyond where the waves are breaking and with a chord tied to the dinghy and the anchor line that allows me to pull the dinghy back out to the anchor after I get ashore so it is away from where the waves are breaking.  Then I can pull it in again when I'm ready to go back out to the boat.  I worked on that system for two or three hours and have it pretty well figured out except I need two devices to reel in the chords.  
I'm working on that part now and will test the whole system the next time I go out.  After lunch, I went ashore in my kayak with my camera gear, pants, hiking boots, etc. in the front waterproof compartment of the kayak so I could change clothes and put on my boots once I was on dry land.  While I was putting on my boots, I saw this baby sea lion laying on the beach.  As I approached him to take a closer picture, he started moving towards the water so I stopped.  He acted like he was sick or injured and really didn't want to go into the water so I backed off and he just laid back down on the sand.  The next 
morning when Jay went ashore, he saw that the 
baby sea lion had died and later we read that there were quite a few that were showing up on various beaches.  I guess something has been happening to their mothers and they're now deserted.  The Nature Conservancy has retrieved about 50 of them and is nursing them back to health.  After taking the picture of the baby sea lion,  I went on a hike up the trail leading away from Coches Prietos towards Prisoner's Harbor (see pic at right) and along the way saw these beautiful wildflowers.  As I looked back down the trail I could just see the tops of Escape's masts (pic at right).  I thought the trail would switchback up the side of the arid ridge and over the other 
side, but instead it curved around and followed the valley up towards Prisoner's Harbor on the other side of the Island.  It was lush and green and there were trees along the trail and springs because there is some water in the creek (see left).   I didn't see any, but I 
could hear frogs croaking in the brush off the side of the road.  I saw this plant beside the trail that had thick velvety 
leaves that were 
very soft to the touch and this big patch of lupines as I neared the top of the ridge.  I couldn't find either this fuzzy-leafed plant or the purple and white flower above in my wildflower app so I'm not sure what they are called.  The trail continued to climb as I reached the top of the ridge but I could see down the other side (see below) and the trail leading off to Prisoner's Harbor.  I turned around here and headed back to Escape because I had told Jay I would only be gone a couple of hours.


There was lots of fox scat along the road, but I did not see any foxes.  
On the way back, I saw this pod kind of a plant with stickers all over it.  There was also one laying on the ground that was cracked open exposing big bean-shaped seeds inside.  After coming back to the beach, I practiced landing with my kayak and paddled around Coches Prietos for a while.  Jay made these fantastic steaks and artichokes 
for supper.  
About 1700 a motor boat came into the bay with 9 people aboard.  They took camping gear ashore and about six of them stayed ashore over night.  For a while they played frisbee, but then they headed up the trail to the bluffs above the beach that I showed you in my last post.  As they were up on the bluff, we noticed that their motor boat was dragging its anchor and was being pushed out to sea.  We were just getting ready to launch our dinghy when we saw their captain come running down the trail and across the beach to their paddle board.  He used that to go retrieve 
their boat and reanchored it on the other side of Escape—this time with more anchor chain out.  After we were sure their boat was secure, I did the dishes and Jay settled down with Séamus and then we both read books until bedtime.  I don't want you to think that Séamus is spoiled, but I can see how one could get that impression from looking at these pictures.
The next morning we left Coches Prietos and headed west in light westerly winds.  The plan was to go around the western end of the island and pick up fairly strong westerly winds as we rounded the northwest corner of the island and ride that all the way back to the marina.  Well, 
the forecast, as usual wasn't very accurate and the winds picked up almost immediately causing us to motor into 15 knot winds.  Fortunately, when we were almost to the western end of the island a pod of three humpback whales surfaced about 200 yards off to the side of our boat and swam with us for about twenty minutes.  We couldn't get much closer than 200 yards because every time we tried they simply dived down and showed up on the other side of the boat or behind the boat.  I put my 400 mm lens on the camera and took these three pictures.  It was really a pleasure to see these huge animals swimming 

 so effortlessly.  It seems like it should be easy to get great pictures of these slow moving behemoths, but it's not as easy as it looks.  In 15 knots of wind, their spout of hot moist air disappears almost immediately into the wind and then you see their tails as they dive back down.  After fighting the winds for a while, and realizing it would take us another two or three hours before we could make the turn around the northwest corner of the island we decided to turn around and sail with the wind back along the 
south side of the island and then back up between Santa Cruz and Anacapa towards the marina.  The winds were light and variable as we approached Coches Prietos where we had anchored the night before, but as we turned north and headed back towards the marina, we picked up westerly winds from 15 to 20 knots and we sailed at 8 to 9 knots all the way back to the marina.  On the way back we saw this sea lion just laying on top of the water staring at us with his flippers sticking up.  Séamus maintained his watch position on the front deck and every time the dolphins came to swim at the bows, he ran up 

there to greet them.  Below right are a couple pictures of Anacapa as we pass between Santa Cruz and Anacapa.  As you can see, even Anacapa is nice and green right now.  I hope to get back out there in the next week or so and hopefully explore part of the northern shore of Santa Cruz.