urbpan | Los Angeles Vacation 2/27: The OTHER Channel Islands

If you've been following my journal, you know that the night before this picture was not good. The short of it is that I tried to visit with my friend and ran into two road closures due to one serious and one fatal traffic accident. This is the glorious sunset at Ventura Beach, complete with full moon. We stayed in Ventura because we were to spend the next day at the Channel Islands National Park. These islands are across the Santa Barbara Channel from LA (as opposed to within the English Channel, where the other Channel Islands are).

This is the far eastern end of Anacapa island, where there's a lighthouse and a landing cove.

This is the landing cove, which feels very small and scary. They pull the front of the boat into place and have to keep gunning the engine as the water tosses everything everywhere. They call it "the washing machine." Kudos to the crew for getting everyone onto the terrifying iron stairway safely--include the many elderly people among us.

Pretty view up there. The lighthouse emits a tone every 14 seconds. You get used to it pretty quick.

We hiked to the farthest accessible place, Inspiration Point.

The view there is down toward the rest of Anacapa, which is actually a chain of several islands.

We were fortunate to be there during the brief blooming season of the tree sunflowers Coreopsis gigantea. (It might be better to call these "tree tickseed" or "giant coreopsis" since they are more closely related to beggarticks than to sunflowers.)

This is a Channel Island fence lizard, an endemic subspecies (Sceloporus occidentalis becki) of the western fence lizard. It's surrounded here by the leaves of another invasive ice plant species. It was explained to me that this species is an annual, and not as troublesome as the perennial species also found on the island (called Hottentot fig when I was in Jersey).

This is the same plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum) that is surrounding the lizard--our guide called it "crystalline ice plant" because of the clear bladders all over it. It's beautiful and edible, but it is invasive, and even increases the salt content of the soil around it, making it harder for other plants to grow nearby.

Like this native Dudleya, planted by Park staff and protected from trampling with a little structure. I assume the structure protects it both from human feet as well as those of the ubiquitous western gulls. During the breeding season there are thousands and thousands of the gulls, and there were many hundred while we were there.

I also found several species of lichens conveniently growing on one rock. Apparently the Channel Islands are a lichen diversity hotspot.

We headed down the 157 steps to board our boat to find the water about six feet lower than when we arrived, necessitating the descent of a ladder to get back on the constantly shifting deck! You can see LeVar Burton going over his script. They were recording some clips for the Reading Rainbow app.