My excuse why I couldn't make the CKF coastal paddle from the Channel Islands Harbor yesterday and the two cancellations Steve didn't even know about!

8 am is not really early...but for those of us who like to sleep-in well that meant getting up at 6 am to arrive in the Channel Islands Harbor by 7:30am to load up our gear and kayaks, sign-in at the office and wait a short time for the big boat to come from the Ventura harbor.

The Islander is a catamaran and wow is it ever comfortable! This is one of the two new boats Island Packers now has in it's fleet.

45 minutes to Anacapa and we were dropping off day people and their kayaks.

Onto Santa Barbara Island and we arrived there by 11am only to make several detours to play with the thousands of Common and White-Sided Dolphins. Oh and let's not forget the two Blue Whales we saw!

For some of us this was a first! All these years crossing the Santa Barbara Channel and finally we got to see our first Blue Whale and two at that! After talking to several people on the Islander this was a first for them too. What a treat!

So now for the real reason why the three of us came to this island, to kayak and take pictures of the islands beauty.

If you want to see and hear pinnipeds this is the place to go. All the way from the Landing Cove to Webster Point the beaches were lined with barking California Sea Lions. Babies were abundant with numbers I couldn't even try to count! It reminded me of the CKF trip to San Simeon in February to view the elephant seals on the beach. There wasn't an empty spot along the rocky shoreline and some of the seals even had planted themselves up on the rocks, cliffs and sandy terrain 40-50 feet from the water line. A new meaning for condo or apartment dwellers.

You can't see all these incredible sights by land but if you kayak around the rocks and points, can handle the sometimes rough water we called a "washing machine" this is the only way to see this small island.

Padding south past the Landing Cove we encountered 4 elephant that we could see, sunning themselves. It was quite obvious what they were. Ten to twelve foot females, weighing 1000-1800 pounds lying next to the sea lions, dwarfing the bull sea lions! Adult male seal lions can reach 1000 pounds and up to 8' in length and females 220 pounds and up to 5' in length. www.elephantseal.org

Then slithering up the beach came the bull elephant seal. What a sight with his distinctive size and trunk-like nose! These guys can reach 3000-5000 pounds and 14-16' in length!!! (That's as long as our boats are!) Yes we did keep our required distance, as the Marine Mammal Protection Act requires and then some! Not one of us wanted to disturb these big-boys!

Santa Barbara Island is only one square mile but for us kayakers it's and endless journey of "around the next point" turns, coves, rock gardens filled with an array of underwater and above water-line habitats, caves, Garibaldi, views above and below water that none of the other islands can produce.

The California Brown Pelican babies were still fluff balls that we could see on the cliff edges above us as we paddled close to this rugged shoreline.

The skies were cloudy on the way out and the seas relatively calm. When we arrived the sun came out and the sea cooperated with us until we departed at 3pm and even then only 3-5' seas were present. Nothing the Islander couldn't handle! What a day! We'll be back!

Paula Chavez

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Barking sea lion	Cave at Elephant Seal Cove	Inquisitive baby sea lion	Who's watching who