Friday, October 22, 2021

We were startled awake by the sounds of our vhf radio crackling to life. Clear, blue skies shone through the hatch windows over our heads, it looked like a glorious day. The radio crackled again, we were being hailed by someone in the anchorage. “Sailing vessel Magick Express, this is Valiente, over”. It was the family we had met in Monterey! Their plan had been to go north to Canada but they had turned around after a few weeks and headed back south, the passage proving to be very difficult with only two adults and two children under the age of 10, not to mention there had been no guarantee they would even be allowed into Canada, the Covid restrictions being incredibly stringent at the time.

We were excited to hear familiar voices, especially in such a remote place, and to top it all off, the weather had lifted overnight and there, just waiting to be explored, was San Miguel Island in breathtaking beauty. We could not have asked for better conditions. As we stuffed some breakfast in, anxious to go adventuring, the couple from SV Taku (the boat we had seen on AIS as we came in) rowed over in their dinghy to say hello. We chatted with them for a few minutes and then grabbed our gear for an electric dinghy zoom and, with any luck, a shore excursion. We were so excited!

San Miguel Island has a long history and an even longer prehistory that researchers have been unravelling for decades. It is a place of extremes, forged in volcanic molten hell-fires and altered by unrelenting pressures at the violent intersection of three tectonic plates, the North American, the Farallon and the Pacific.

San Miguel is part of what was once an ancient island that geologists have named ‘Santa Rosae’. Geologic evidence shows that Santa Rosae was created on a sedimentary platform that contained remnants of the Farallon plate and was separate from the other two (North American and Pacific) plates. It was oriented in a different direction than it is today, with the end that is now San Miguel Island being located close to San Diego. As the Pacific Plate moved north, it grabbed the edge of the sedimentary platform causing it to rotate clockwise 100 degrees to the current alignment we see today.

Now comes the good part. Between 10-20,000 years ago, sea levels were 400ft lower than today making Santa Rosae much closer to the mainland, allowing Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) and other species to migrate there! At the end of the last ice age, sea levels began to rise flooding low-lying valleys and dividing Santa Rosae into today’s four Channel Islands (from west to east; San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Anacapa). As waters rose, the distance between each new island increased as did the distance to the mainland, trapping the island populations and cutting them off completely from their continental and neighboring island cousins. The islands’ dwindling size and shrinking food supply caused the size of mammoth to decrease (from 14ft down to 4.5 – 7ft😍), resulting in the pygmy species (Mammuthus exilis) whose super cute remains are found there today.

In addition to mammoth, other mammals including gray fox and deer mouse, (to name a few) as well as birds such as scrub jay, and numerous reptiles, amphibians, and plant species, also made the trip. The isolation from the mainland caused the plants and animals to evolve differently, resulting in new species that are found nowhere else on earth. Never connected to the mainland, the islands and their inhabitants were and are unique.

Naturally, where animals go, humans are sure to follow and evidence of early Chumash villages date between 8,000-11,000 years with archaeology showing continuous occupation until the 1800s when the inhabitants left. What followed was period of destruction as ranchers brought cattle and sheep that overgrazed the islands. By 1875, with the stabilizing ground cover gone, all that was left was a ‘barren lump of sand’. The native species were decimated by the new arrivals, as they slowly turned the islands into a wasteland.

That destruction was halted in the mid 1900s when the National Park Service bought the islands and removed the introduced species. What followed was a period of regrowth and regeneration as native plants were once again allowed to flourish providing a healthy habitat for the critters that had managed to survive. Today, thankfully, we see an island in recovery.

On the islands western end, remote Point Bennet has been described as “one of the world’s most spectacular wildlife displays-over 30,000 pinnipeds and up to five different species hauled out on the point’s beaches at certain times of year”. Once hunted to near extinction, Harbor Seals, Stellar Sea Lions, California Sea Lions, Elephant Seals, Guadalupe Fur Seals and Northern Fur Seals numbering in the thousands can be seen and studied here. The same is said for sea birds who use the remote shores to nest and rest, not to mention the countless marine species that abound below the surface. What an amazing place, literally a place like no other, and just imagine if pygmy mammoth had managed to survive too…😍

But our time here was short, we only had a few hours before the weather was due to turn. We hopped in the dinghy, and Charles, having put the electric motor on for our upcoming beach landing, electric-zoomed us across the bay in search of a good spot to land near the trail to the ranger station. As we neared the beach at the base of the trail, we met the Valiente crew, each on their own paddleboard and looking to get ashore as well. With rolling waves breaking, a beach landing here for us was out, but the adventurous paddleboarders decided to go for it. I gave them a well-sealed baggie of the chocolate cookies I had baked for our passage and they were off to shore, everyone kneeling and surfing in towards Dad who had gone in first. If you remember this family from our Monterey post (see Still Recombobulating), these kids are used to getting wet.

With the trailhead a no-go, we headed back across the bay in search of a calmer spot to beach the dinghy, a spot with no waves, rocks, or elephant seals (who, it turns out, are much less excited to see us than we are them). We found what we were looking for at one of the most picturesque spots we had seen, just beside a stand of four out-of-place (and actually planted) palm trees that give the spot a tropical feel. The lone elephant seal, a female, was a good distance off at the cliff base, fast asleep. She was likely here as a result of the dozens and dozens of her compatriots that we found noisily jostling for space the next beach over.

We beached the dinghy fairly easily, bringing the motor up as the water shallowed and we coasted in on the waves, oars at the ready just in case we turn sideways. As we pulled Hammock Express up the beach above the high tide line we were stunned, thrilled, awed to be standing on these shores, walking on this beach. It felt otherworldly and prehistoric. Raw natural beauty was in every direction we looked, all of our senses were met with wonder.

This is the island we had come to see, where nature, in the face of utter destruction, had regrown. Life had found a way to survive, and when given an opportunity, had thrived. What a testament to resilience and perseverance, what a tumultuous existence, and what untamed beauty as a result. Like precious gems, shaped and molded from extreme trauma. We felt humbled by the magnitude of what this island has endured and fortunate that conditions had aligned to bring us here. With so little time to experience this place, we set out to see what we could see in the little time we had.

It has been my experience that you can never rely on wild animals to stay put for very long, so first-things-first, I headed off down beach in the direction of the elephant seal, my telephoto lens on my camera, and the powder-fine sand muting my footsteps, I didn’t want to bother her or alert her to my presence. I got to spend some quality time at a respectful distance, the warm, soft sand making this a cozy spot. In the meantime, Charles headed off to explore the rocky outcrop by the palm trees.

After a while I joined him, checking out the dramatic cliff face with its distinct and contrasting sedimentary layers, the eroding sandstone gradually returning to sand, exposing and discarding cobbles and pebbles along with the gnarled, twisted remains of ancient, calcified roots. As a former archaeologist I am drawn to erosional surfaces, especially ones with possible miniature mammoth bits, so, needless to say, I browsed for a while. The occasional tiny non-mammoth bone spurring me to keep looking.

Since eroding cliffs can keep me amused for hours, Charles headed off across the point toward the next beach over, the far end of which was covered in elephant seals. Here though, at the rocky point, the sandstone is different. Intense heat during the islands transformations caused the sandstone to become ‘cemented’ resulting in very sharp and jagged edges, making it treacherous and difficult to walk on. I decided not to risk it and explored the intertidal zone instead to see what lifeforms clung to the edges and undersides of the shoreline.

Eventually, the forecasted weather began to build and we decided we should think about getting back before it worsened. We still had to launch the dinghy from the beach (in waves!), a more difficult task than landing, get back on the boat and stow the dinghy before conditions got too rough. We took our last photos and had our last looks, trying to take in as much of our surroundings as possible before shifting our focus to leaving, the clouds beginning to build.

As we loaded our things into the dinghy and walked it to the shallows discussing our exit plan, an elephant seal suddenly beached right in front of us, startling us both as well as itself. For about 20 seconds we regarded each other in a wary standoff before the seal disappeared, likely to try again a little farther down the beach.

We waded out, I climbed in and took the oars and Charles pushed us off from the beach. The first wave knocked us sideways and a second almost tipped us, but somehow, using the oars, we managed to re-align and make our way deeper until Charles could get the motor down. The waves had definitely picked up since we had gone ashore and we were glad that we had made the decision to leave when we did, conditions were only going to worsen making this much more difficult.

By the time we were back on board, the clouds that had been forming across the bay were now darkening and beginning to build. I looked out in the direction of the trailhead, searching for the paddleboarders from Valiente, we hadn’t seen them since they had gone ashore, we hadn’t seen anybody. SV Taku had sailed out earlier headed for Santa Rosa Island ahead of the upcoming storm, they were having engine difficulties and wanted to give themselves enough time to get to a safer anchorage. We would be heading to the same anchorage the next morning so hopefully we would see them there.

After about 20 minutes of scanning the bay and shoreline we spotted them. The waves had picked up considerably by this time and we knew that getting off the beach would be difficult, not to mention, paddling across the bay. Once launched, they would have at least 30 minutes or more of paddling in worsening conditions with visibility dropping. Charles decided to launch our dinghy swapping out the electric motor for the gas one and headed off in their direction.

Within minutes he had collected both children and their boards and was towing mom and dad on either side. It turns out that they are used to paddleboarding in rough conditions, it is why they used the paddleboards instead of their dinghy. That is not to say they weren’t very appreciative of their ‘nervous nellie’ neighbors, the kids especially were pretty happy for the lift.

With a foggy mist rolling in, our day at San Miguel Island was done. It ended the way it had begun, the curtain of fog closing, the beauty masked, the spectacle over. It was going to take a while to process this, this magical place, out on the edge of the continent that so few are fortunate enough to visit. We were left desperately trying to take as much in as we could before it would be gone.

San Miguel Island was many things for us: A reminder of the splendor that can be found around us if we seek it out; an example of the persistence of nature and the inclination of all non-human (and some human) things to return to their wild state if left alone to do so; a milestone of accomplishments for Charles and I and seeing first hand what persistence can do; and a reminder that if you just keep going, eventually you will get somewhere. But going forward San Miguel Island will be with us forever. One of those amazing days that stand out in your memories, a marker in our lives of a place that changed us in a way that is hard to put into words because there aren’t enough, and you end up saying (as you look away wistfully, instantly transported) that it was just a really, really great day.

For more information on San Miguel Island

https://www.nps.gov/chis/planyourvisit/san-miguel-island.htm

https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?pg=36666&id=EF497E0E-155D-4519-3E00CAAC66C3E9D0