By Pat

Its been two weeks since I visited channel islands, off the coast of California, with a group of friends, and some of the events that occurred last week, got me thinking.

Something draws us to these pristine natural wonders that haven't been disturbed significantly by the usual human activities. Maybe it is literally the thrill of traveling over water to an unfamiliar land, exploration instincts or maybe it is the yearning for tranquility. It was indeed a pleasure to walk on the deserted beach with the rhythmic wash of the waves, sleeping under the star studded sky and waking up to the birds chirping. Further, the shallow beaches gave us the opportunity to see the marine ecosystem and an interesting evolution of fox that shrunk to the size of a house cat, becoming today's island fox species. A nature lover would love the fact that islands that are isolated from the main land for over thousands of years result in pristine natural land devoid of human activity and the resultant rich biodiversity.

We drove down to Ventura on Friday night and stayed there overnight to catch the morning ferry. Island Packers lead the group to Channel Islands on a two tier boat. We spotted some seals right away and were really amazed to see two huge blue whales on the way to the island. We reached the Santa Cruz island by around 11, after an hour long ride on the ferry. The boat docks in a cove where the currents are lighter. We had to walk almost a mile to reach our camp site and it was almost noon, so we decided to have some food and walked back to beach to kayak in the crystal clear calm turquoise waters of the cove, and explore some spectacular sea caves on the sides of the steep basalt cliffs. Unlike the rich marine ecosystem, the foliage on the islands is dry and yet there is beauty in its simple barren landscape surrounded by the vast blue ocean. Later in the evening and the Sunday morning we walked along the trails that provided the spectacular views around the island, with the sun on the horizon and cool breeze in my hair. The two mile hike along the edge of the cliff reminded us of the “lord of the rings”.

Having pitched our tents before we took the evening trail, we returned back to our campsite, tired and hungry from one of the most beautiful trails I have done thus far. We had food and talked till late night before we retired to our cozy little tents. We awoke to gorgeous Sunday morning and made some tea and breakfast and broke the camp as quickly as we could. Leaving all the camping equipment at the dock, we left for the cavern point to enjoy the breathtaking view of the vast ocean set against the beautiful California coast. Then we returned to the shore and spent some time in the cold pacific waters and shortly after we finished that and had lunch we saw our ferry right on schedule. All the passenger helped the crew load and unload the camping gear and thus ending our mini island camping & kayaking adventure, and we returned to the sin city.