Pictures From My Trip - Anacapa Island

We took a trip to Anacapa Island, part of the Channel Islands off the coast of California. We took a ferry over from Oxnard, it is about a one hour trip each way. When you get there you come into a little cove and climb straight up the cliff on 150 or so steps made of metal. It is part of the National Park system and there are park rangers and a ranger station there taking care of the island, however there are no homes or other structures. Pack in and pack out if you want to eat or drink. There are trails and paths so it is easy to hike around. I will blog the other places we went tomorrow but this deserves a whole blog post to itself.



View of the island from the boat as we left Oxnard.

 

This is the view on the end of Anacapa, the Southern most of the Channel Islands. It is called Inspiration Point. I believe the rest of these are all part of Anacapa and the other islands are further away.



The island is covered with these strange flowers, they are like a bush or tree. Some are a foot tall and others are as much as 5 feet tall. I looked them up and they are called the tree sunflower, or coreopsis, a plant found only on the Channel Islands and a few isolated areas on the coast. We were fortunate to see it bloom as it only blooms in the Spring.



This is how most of the island is, these flower trees with seagulls nesting on and in them.



The birds. No, not the movie but it sure felt like it! They were nesting and all they do is stare at you and squawk. It was quite funny after a while, they were everywhere. The paths wind through the plants.



This is the other flower abundant on the island, Iceplant.



The cliffs along the island are very steep and sheer.



If you do get close enough to the edge you can see the Sea Lions and Seals basking in the sun on the rocks.



We saw a huge pod of Risso's Dolphins as we left the island. It was a nice trip and very interesting. I really enjoyed it and I think my friends did too.