Mike’s mom, Liz, enjoying the sail from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz Island
The Channel Islands are a small archipelago of eight islands off the coast of southern California. Stretching from Point Conception in the northwest to San Diego in the south, most of the island chain is undeveloped and in more or less the same state as it has been for thousands of years.
Sunrise from Little Scorpion Anchorage, Santa Cruz Island
The northernmost five of the islands are part of Channel Islands National Park, and they are only accessible by boat. Santa Cruz Island is the largest of the five – the eastern quarter is part of the national park, while the western three quarters is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy
Hiking up along the bluffs between Scorpion Anchorage and Potato Anchorage
We dropped anchor in Little Scorpion Anchorage on the eastern tip of the island. While this gave good protection from the prevailing northwesterly breeze, it didn’t do much to cut down the small northwest swell that would periodically wrap into the anchorage.
Madrone at anchor in Little Scorpion Anchorage, just beyond the two small islands
There are no facilities for landing a dinghy on shore, so we drove the dinghy towards the beach and timed our approach to arrive between the waves. Our timing was almost perfect, but almost is not good enough for a beach landing – the whole crew got a splash of ocean water before we were able to scramble out of the dinghy and pull it above the surf line.
Looking west along the north shore of Santa Cruz Island
No problem, though, as the warm, dry Southern California air quickly dried pants and shoes. We enjoyed a hike to a viewpoint with a stunning vista from the cliffs on the north edge of the island and felt lucky to be able to experience an unspoiled piece of the California coast.
