After spending the night in Ventura Harbor, we're up early the next morning for our ferry ride out to Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park.
Some sea lions lounging around as we leave the harbor.
After a little more than an hour (and some mild sea sickness on my part), we approach the dock at Prisoner's Harbor on Santa Cruz Island. The old ranch building…
Looking down the coast from Prisoner's Harbor. It's pretty overcast when we arrive, which is evidently very normal for the islands. But it would clear to be…
We stayed on the boat to take a tour up the coast to Painted Cave. There are many great examples along the way of the sea caves and bridges that the islands are…
A nice sea bridge along the coast.
Beautiful coastal views.
Another large arch. It sure would be fun to kayak through that.
After some rough surf, we approach Painted Cave. It ranks as one of the largest sea caves in the world at over 1/4 mile deep.
Our 62' catamaran slowly inches its way into the cave.
The chambers get smaller and smaller as we work our way in.
That's as far as we can fit. It's a very cool experience, definitely not something you get to see every day.
After leaving Painted Cave, we head back out to sea for some whale watching. While we unfortunately didn't see any whales, we did have some amazing dolphin…
There were hundreds of dolphins, many coming up right alongside the bow of the boat where we were standing.
They were almost close enough to touch.
Beautiful animals. The fluid, efficient movement is awe inspiring.
It's amazing how their blow hole opens for just a split second as they hit the surface, exhale their air, and breath in another gulp of air before heading back…
A short video attempting to show the dolphins surfing in our wake.
Now we're back at Prisoner's Harbor and the weather is a little clearer.
We see a beautiful, bright blue Island Scrub Jay as we listen to an orientation from the park ranger.