As the big much dreaded, birthday approached, all I was thinking about was how much I wanted to run away and get away from it all - so what better place to do that than on a seemingly deserted island, right?
The Channel Islands are a string of five volcanic islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. They are also the least visited National Park in the nation; mainly because you have to take an hour long boat ride and the islands are not necessarily handicap accessible, depending on what would be required.
There are no cars, there is no electricity, no water (except in Santa Cruz campground). No cell service. No Netflix, no Starbucks, 7-11, Amazon or Uber. You are on your own, completely. Which is both awesome and well, a bit unnerving at times - depending on which island you go to. Preparation and self reliance is a must when visiting.
The plus side is that on the boat ride out you will most times see a large number of dolphins, and depending on the time of year, awesome whale sightings.
We had gone to Anacapa Island a few years ago, the first, and smallest, island you come to on your voyage out. You can literally walk it in about an hour, but you won’t because the views off the cliffs are breathtaking and you will want to sit and stay in the moment for a long time. It is the easiest to maneuver as it is fairly flat and can be easily hiked by almost anyone.
Ever since that trip out we have talked about going out and camping so it seemed like the perfect place for me to go for my birthday and just get right with myself and reflect on these incredible five decades I have survived.
We hit REI for Mountain House meals, packed up our tent, sleeping bags, lanterns and all the other gear we would need, shoved it all in our big backpacks and off we headed to Island Packers in Ventura to catch our boat.
After the ride out, and seeing tons of amazing dolphins, we off loaded and headed into Scorpion campground to locate our space. Since we selected our campsite ahead of time on the website we were surprised to find that it was one of the only ones that had zero shade - of course. Overall though the entire campground was quite lovely with eucalyptus trees everywhere.
We went to get water only to discover that the water spouts are COVERED in yellowjackets. Just watch the video - it’s insane!!!! After conquering that fear we headed out hiking - many ups and downs and a lot of blisters followed lol.
For my birthday I got the new GoPro Hero7 so it was the perfect time to try it out and I made a short video of our trip. The first half is happy - the 2nd half is….hmm…not so much. But, OMG those views. What an incredible place to be!
Overall it was an awesome experience - one I can’t wait to do again. We’ve been to two of the islands now - 3 more to go ;)
Anyway, I know you didn’t come here to hear me ramble, so on to the pics. There’s a lot, I know. Hope you enjoy.
