Ash Adventures

In order to first get to Channel Islands National Park (“The Galapagos of the North”) we first took a boat ride through a megapod of perhaps 1,000 dolphins, by the captain’s estimate.   A layer of dense clouds, known as the marine layer, hovered low above the ocean, as the silhouette of Santa Cruz Island, 21 miles off the shore of Ventura, CA, came into view. We disembarked onto Scorpion Anchorage, a beach between two of the island’s cliffs and collected our stowed items. After a briefing from a Park Ranger on the pier, we were off to carry our camping and trekking gear the half mile to our campsite.  I had been kindly invited to intrude on my brother’s and his recently engaged fiance’s camping trip after a prior trip I planned had been canceled due to weather. Unfortunately, Steven ended up having to be available for jury duty on the mainland, so was unable to join us. Erika and I went on the trip regardless, and set up our tents with the help of the adorably small island fox...