Awakened by splashing, we rushed on deck to watch a light show ensue. “Dolphins!” cried our captain, Dan. The cetaceans had chased sardines into an anchorage called Ladys Harbor on Santa Cruz Island, where we had pulled in for the night; they now careened around our boat’s hull, blowing breath from their air holes and kicking up streaks of neon blue bioluminescence as they feasted. It was just one of the many magic tricks I have witnessed nature pull off while sailing California’s Channel Islands.
A landlocked East Coaster by birth, I married into a family of seaworthy Californians. Beyond Reason, the 38-foot sloop they keep at Ventura Harbor, is my home now for a week each summer. My wife, Jeanne, various members of her family, and I pack the galley with food and stow dive gear in the head. We secure paddleboards and a kayak to the lifelines, close the portals, and shove off. From the pile of harbor seals lolling on the bell buoy at the mouth of the marina, it’s a four-hour sail across the Santa Barbara Channel past two hulking oil rigs to the island of Santa Cruz, our usual destination. Dolphins always play in our wake. If it’s early enough in summer, we may meet whales.
An eight-island archipelago stretching from Santa Barbara south to San Diego, the Channels have been a draw for humans for millennia. The Tongva tribe made a currency of beads from shells they collected on the southern islands. The Chumash dominated the northern islands, building villages to support 1,200 people on Santa Cruz, the largest of the Channels. After Europeans arrived, the islands were exploited for the military, ranching, drilling, and fishing.
Nowadays six islands are open to day trippers and boaters, and even San Clemente, which is owned by the Navy, allows boats to anchor in its coves. A National Marine Sanctuary dots the northern islands, protecting parts of their ocean. The National Park Service hosts a campground and ferry dock on Santa Cruz, but more than three quarters of that island is owned by the global nonprofit Nature Conservancy, which is working to bring back the native ecosystem. In practicality, Santa Cruz is uninhabited; its hidden lagoons, bald-eagle-guarded cliffs, and wildflower-edged beaches are the singular pleasure of sailors like us.
