Anacapa Island

We were hot, tired, and red, when we got home last night so there was no posting for me.

We did have a great day. Left the house at about 0700 and drove to Oxnard and we were only about 35 minutes early so we just took a walk around the marina. When Island Packers opened we got all checking in and received our boarding passes. Then it was another 30 minutes until we could get on the boat.

It took us about 1 1/2 hours to get to the island but we saw lots of things on the way. First were the brown pelicans, they were everywhere. Swooping and diving and catching things. A couple of seals made an appearance but all you really see of them is their head sticking out of the water. Sunfish were next and that was just a fluttering of the water and went by really quickly. Then the excitement began. A pod of about 200 dolphins joined the boat for a ways. Jumping and swimming along side us for quite a while, really enjoyed watching that.

Before landing we took a quick tour of one end of the island, lots of interesting formations including a huge arch off the end of island.

Finally arrived at the island, only about 9 other people got off with us, the rest were just taking a boat tour and going back in a couple of hours. We weren't leaving until 1700 so we had lots of time to explore.

First we had to walk up 154 steps to the top of the island. Wasn't to bad, Dan and I ended up going first and we made it with only stopping once. We had to enjoy the view, right. Well that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Once we got to the top saw the first of hundreds of baby seagulls, it is nesting season. Very few of the adults were still sitting on eggs because they had hatched. They were everywhere.

The island (the part we were on, East Anacapa) is about 1.5 - 2 miles long and we walked the whole thing. It was beautiful. One spot reminded me of the southern most point of the Big Island of Hawaii, you'll have to look at the pictures Tammy and see if you agree.

It was very hot on the island, it is pretty flat with no trees so there was no shade and a couple of areas we lost the breeze but we just took our time and enjoy all that there was to see. One thing I really enjoy was at the opposite end of the island from where we landed was a huge cliff with lots of air currents. The pelicans and seagulls were just going round and round soaring on the currents. Watched that for a long time.

The boat back left right on time and we made a pretty straight shot in to the marina, slowed down once when we saw a blue shark. All we really saw was fins and it was about six feet long.

Went to dinner at Red Robin, seeing all the commercials made Dan want to try it out. We both got burgers and they were very good.

Got home at about 2000 and we were ready for bed. Took showers and that was all she wrote.