Black Cormorant

Point Bennett

Point Bennett at San Miguel Island, westernmost point of the Channel Islands.  It's hard to believe that it was this flat out there; it is very exposed and often stormy, usually rough and seldom diveable.  These factors may explain the survival of a population of red urchins there, among the reefs just offshore.  Their offspring could repopulate the rest of the Channel Islands. The California Department of Fish & Game is considering opening the area to limited abalone harvesting.  We'll see what 2007 brings!

Cormorants at Can Rock, San Miguel

Cormorants at Can Rock, on the northeast side of San Miguel Island. This spot is near a verdant kelp bed, and must be a good fishing ground.

Sea Lions at Adams Cove

Sea lions at Adams Cove, San Miguel Island.  Underwater in this spot, often I saw sea lions in every direction I looked. Two blew bubbles in my face while snapping their teeth, and another shoved my elbow; but mostly they enjoyed making fun of the clumsy human. The sea lions stay together, either because they are afraid of sharks, or because they are social; or are those the same thing? 

Hare Rock, San Miguel

San Miguel is famously inaccessible; I finally made it for the first time on my 7th attempt, on the dive boat "Conception". The island is close to Pt Conception, and weather and swell are changeable and often hostile.  It can be lovely when one actually does get there -- at least below the surface. 

Here San Miguel shows its most friendly face, near Hare Rock on the northeast corner of the island.  It is truly a desert island.  Below the surface the water is rich with kelp, fish, and abalone -- diveable only under the best conditions. 

On this perfect day, a sundowner wind from the northeast onshore drove wind waves at the eastern end of the channel, but flattened the water toward the west -- or so the captain of the Shearwater explained.  He has sailed most of the world's oceans, and navigated to Pacific atolls without watch or chronometer, so who am I to disagree? Particularly on such a perfect day.

Pyramid Head, San Clemente Island

Cone Head might be a better name than
Pyramid Head for this rock at the extreme southeast tip of San Clemente Island.  I wonder what geological processes shaped the rock, and then gave it its particular texture?  A now-mythical gradschool classmate of mine erased and reused his notebook paper: a palimpsest. My geologist sister says that California is a complete mishmash, and the Channel Islands are worst of all; still a few lines of an interesting story might still be legible here.