Santa Cruz Island
Weather: clear, sunny, slightly windy
SS: Choppy in crossing the bay, calm inside the cove.
Morning
Day one started very early for a majority of the boys. I woke up immediately after the engines started up. I had already planned on getting up early to get footage of the sunrise and night sailing, but I didn’t plan on getting up as early as 4:00 am. The sea was very rough on the way out of the harbor, and although I usually don’t get motion sickness, I was beginning to feel a bit queasy below decks, so I moved to the upper deck with Josh, and Matthew. To begin with, Josh and Matthew were not seasick at all while I was feeling a little bit sick, but as I started to feel better, Josh and Matthew got worse until they both sat in sea sick induced silence. Josh eventually threw up over the side of the boat. Samuel soon joined us just in time to watch the sunrise. It was incredible to see the sun come up over the city of Santa Barbara, mostly because of how big and colorful it appeared as it reflected the surface of the water. At the same time the sun rose, everyone else seemed to awaken as well, and soon great smells were seeping out of the galley. Eventually, we put an anchor down at a cove called Blue Banks Anchorage and ate a breakfast of egg muffin sandwiches.
Snorkel
After eating breakfast, we all suited up in our wetsuits to go snorkeling. We were all extremely reluctant to get into the water, some of us even started to cross themselves and say the Lord's prayer (I’m looking at you, Nick). We were reluctant for a good reason though, the water was only about 50 degrees and even with my 7mm suit, I was freezing at first. Some of my classmates had only 3mm suits, and I honestly have no idea how they managed to NOT freeze to death. My snorkeling experience did not start out the best, and this was by far the worst dive out of all of them, but this might have been a good thing because it made me far more excited for the dives that followed. Shortly after I jumped into the water, one of my fins fell off as I tried in vain to dive down to see the seaweed forest more clearly. My 7mm suit was both a blessing and a curse because while it kept me relatively warm, it also made it nearly impossible to dive any distance that would matter. More often than not, I would just flop my fins out of the water while sticking my face under the surface trying desperately to submerge. I don’t quite know what the thought process behind making fins sinkable was, but shortly after watching my first fin fall away to a murky death, my second fin followed suit leaving me stranded. I paddled back to the boat and borrowed new fins that fit much better. Overall this snorkel spot was not the best, but I was able to see some things that are worth noting. First of all, the water was extremely clear, creating an optical illusion in which the bottom of the ocean appeared much closer than it actually was. Looking down, we were able to see the base of the seaweed forest, and also some bushels of seagrass. I was able to spot some Garibaldi fish swimming in and around this seagrass because of their attention-grabbing coloring.
Common name: Horn Shark
Genus: Heterodontus
Species: Francisci
Class: Chondrichthyes
Phylum: Chordata
3 behaviors: The horn shark is a bottom feeder, meaning that its mouth is pointed down. It is typically a very docile shark, but if it gets out of hand, they are small enough to hold, so all you need to do is flip them, upside down and they pass out.
Adaptation: the horn on the back helps protect against predators from biting down on the vitals.
Descriptions: the horn shark has a beautiful spotted design that helps it to stay camouflaged while it feeds in its native habitat. The skin reminds me of a leopard.
Other than these things, there was very little else to not other than how cold the water was and how incredibly annoying to swim through the Kelp was. We swam for about 30 minutes before climbing out. The divers brought up a purple sea urchin as well as a California black Sea Hare which a number of us proceeded to kiss with surprising passion. I was not one of those to kiss the sea hare though, as it was not at all an appealing activity tout my mouth on a slimy sea creature. I might have considered kissing the Horn Shark though.
Common name: Mexican Sea Hare
Genus: Aplysia
Species: Vaccaria
Class: Opisthobranchia
Phylum: Mollusca
3 behaviors: The sea hare is very similar to the sea cucumber in that it has the ability to go completely limp if it feels stressed. We also got to see it expelling water out of a small hole in the front of the creature. When it swims, it apparently opens up its sides and “flies” through the water by flapping its “wings”.
Adaptation: the ability to go limp in order to fake being dead
Descriptions: The sea hare is coated in a slimy film that reminds me a lot of snot. It is a dark green in color and has a very smooth skin. Its sensors and other “holes” protrude from the body slightly.
Common name: Purple Sea Urchin
Genus: Strongylocentrotus
Species: purpuratus
Class: Echinoidea
Phylum: Echinodermata
3 behaviors: They “Walk” by using their spines to get around. They have a muscular foot that they use to attach themselves to surfaces with. Although the California version of this creature cannot, other types of sea urchins can defend themselves through the use of poison.
Adaptation: Their spines help keep predators away.
Descriptions: They are purple in color, and they completely cover the entire ocean floor around these islands. When you hold still you can feel them crawling and suctioning themselves to your hands.
Common name: California Sea urchin
Genus: centrostephanus
Species: Coronatus
Class: Echinoidea
Phylum: Echinodermata
3 behaviors: The “Walk” by using their spines to get around. They have a muscular foot that they use to attach themselves to surfaces with. Although the California version of this creature cannot, other types of sea urchins can defend themselves through the use of poison.
Adaptation: Their spines help keep predators away.
Descriptions: They are black in color, and while they are slightly more rare than purple sea urchins and just a little bit bigger, there are still quite a few than we were able to see. When you hold still you can feel them crawling and suctioning themselves to your hands.
Kayaking
We changed locations and made our way to Whale Rock, another cove off the coast of Santa Cruz Island. Kayaking was much more revealing of the wildlife for me, and I was able to absorb much more of the beauty that surrounded the island. Looking at the rocks and ocean was an incredible experience and Kruise and I were able to see much more species than our first experience. The Garibaldi seemed to be much more apparent, and we were able to get a closer look at the creatures and grasses that covered the rocks surrounding us. Other than this, Kayaking was relatively straightforward and we didn't encounter any problems other than occasionally straying too close to the rocks.
Squid Dissection
After returning from kayaking, we started on our squid dissection. We started by having a quick overview of the external features of squids in general before moving on to actually cutting open the real squid. I typically do not enjoy dissections, but I enjoyed this one because of the lack of blood or bodily fluids contained by the squid. Probably my highlight of this exercise would be seeing Samuel Butler rub ink all over his face and attempt to remove it by scrubbing himself with the squid skin. We did see the exact same squid off the boat later that night, and it was interesting to see the things we had just learned about in action.
Free Time/ Dinner
After completing the day activities, we moved on to eating dinner, which was delicious as always, consisting of steak and potatoes. This was also part of our free time, so Kruise and I went to the top deck and he helped me capture some shots of the boat with my drone. The flight went well, and the landing was one of my best yet, probably because everyone else was belowdecks so I wasn't as nervous.
Plankton
Out of all of our activities, I thought that this one was the least effective in accomplishing its purpose. We all gathered on the deck and we ran around the boat with a net to attempt to collect as much plankton as possible. We put these samples under a microscope, but there were very few specimens that we caught, and the microscopes moved and made it almost impossible to share our findings with friends and even harder to draw in our journals. I was able to see one of the examples, so that was pretty interesting. I wish that there would have been more structures to this exercise so that we could have pulled more out of it. Maybe this activity wasn't so successful because of how tired we all were. It was only 8:30 when we finished, but most of us went straight to bed. There were very few shenanigans that night.
Day 2
Santa Cruz Island
Weather: clear, sunny, slightly windy
SS: Choppy in crossing the bay, calm inside the cove.
On Day two, we ate breakfast, packed our lunches, then sailed to a pier off the coast of Santa Rosa. in groups of six, we all rode to the main Island on the dingy that was attached to the back of the Truth. After landing, we all took pictures at the loading dock/ pier and waited for the rest of our group to arrive. We then headed ashore, taking in the beauty of the surroundings. We could see the other islands in the distance along with the LA coast, still murky in the mid-morning fog. The island was even more beautiful when we were standing on it, and it truly was amazing to see how untouched the land truly was. The only things we were able to notice was the occasional truck and fencing, but besides the houses for the caretakers, there was nothing that we saw that tainted the land. The shoreline is filled with rocky outcroppings and filled with caves. After looking through the farmhouse that had been turned into a museum of the Island, we walked past a farm shed and sat down in a grassy clearing. While sitting there, we talked about invasive species on the island, and the incursion of different types of grasses and animals. The grasses were the most notable, having been brought over from the mainland for cattle to feed on. The Cows had eaten most of the native grasses, but because they tend to grow slower than the non-native grasses, they were unable to keep up with the consumption of the cows. Farmers brought over faster growing species of grasses from the mainland, which began to choke out the native grasses which could simply not keep up with the growth of the others. The conservationists have begun to focus efforts on keeping the invasive grasses at bay while trying to replenish the dying native species. We also talked about the animal species that had invaded Catalina Island. Bison were put on Catalina Island for movie pops apparently, and stories were told about how the conservationists would fly over the islands in helicopters to shoot the overpopulated bison herds. After we finished these conversations, we went for a hike.
Ecology Hike
This hike encompassed all of the ecosystems of the Santa Cruz island. The first part of the walk That we went on was through the fields that surround the whole island. I can only assume that the grasses that we walked through were the invasive species that had been mentioned in our earlier talk. There were only a few signs of humanity during the first section. We encountered a couple airfields and the pathway we walked along was also used as a road for the few cars and trucks they had on the island. Other than that there were a couple of fences by the cliffs, but these were mostly in poor shape, and we were able to hop the fences and take some pictures by the edges of the cliffs. This was a great time to spend time with friends and the pictures that were taken turned out incredible. My favorite memory of this portion of the trip was Samuel taking off his shirt and posing for Instagram. We eventually got away from the edge of the cliff after being threatened by the teachers and the guides. In retrospect, posing for pictures on the edge of those cliffs probably wasn’t the smartest idea, as the drop was at least twenty feet, and the nearest hospital was at least twenty-six miles away by boat, but it was easily the most memorable experience. We continued on our hike making our way through more fields and crossing streams. Eventually, we ended up in a small pine forest where we had lunch. I went exploring down by the cliffs and got to get a better look at the insides of the caves. The inside of the caves looked mostly like quicksand and it was hard to tell where the water stopped and the sand began. It was interesting to see how the gulls interacted with the land and how they thermal off of the beaches and sloped off of the cliffs. We finished up talking and headed back to the pier. After climbing down the old ladder, We walked along the beach. At first, we were just interested in running around and goofing off, but as we explored more, we worked our way down the beach and searched through the caves and tide pools. It only took a couple of minutes before we were all hunting for crabs and different types of nudibranchs.
Common name: Bat Star
Genus: Asterina
Species: Miniata
Class: Echinoidea
Phylum: Echinodermata
3 behaviors: Typically the predator in tide pools. They are slow moving but are aggressive towards smaller creatures. They move by using their hydrovascular system
Adaptation: they are able to grow back missing body parts
Descriptions: The bat start has less pronounced legs, with the body being wider than on most sea stars.
Painted caves/Kayaking
In this part of the trip, we took turns switching out between riding in the kayaks and getting a tour of the painted cave in the skiff. We went kayaking first, and I am very glad that this ended up happening because we found a cave full of seals. At first, I Thought they were rock, but then they all started to bark and run out of the caves. I was laughing but also terrified at the same time because I knew that if they had decided to attack us there would have been nothing we could do to stop them. There were many baby seals as well, and they were trying to imitate their parents by barking and hopping along the small beach. We ended up following this group of seals out into the ocean, and we got them to come close to the kayaks a couple of times, never within touching distance though. Once we got back to the boat, we prepared to ride on the skiff. I heard that they saw a great white shark, but I still don't know if I should believe this, as I mainly heard it from Josh Dickey and Caleb Kruis. The painted Caves were amazing though, and once we got inside, it was completely black. I don't think I have actually been in a room that black before, and it was amazing. It was crazy to see the ways that the cave had been eroded away and left in that shape. The ride back in the skiff was super bumpy, and I almost fell out of the boat a couple of times, but luckily, we made it back safely.
Common name: Sea Cucumber
Genus:Parastichopus
Species:parvimensis
Class: Holothuroidea
Phylum: Echinodermata
3 behaviors: They don’t do much other than scavenge along the seafloor. When they feels threatened, they can fill with water to become rigid, or more likely they will go completely limp to fake death.
Adaptation: Their ability to go limp
Descriptions: Very slimy, and a darkish green color. They had a snotty residues coating their entire body
Common name: Spanish Shawl
Genus: Flabellina
Species: Iodinea
Family: Flabellinidae
Phylum: Mollusca
3 behaviors: They swim on their side, despite how it might appear they might swim. They have bright colors to show that they are poisonous to other tide pool creatures.
Adaptation: the bright colors are the most notable adaptation.
This was probably the most interesting learning experience of the entire trip because we were finally getting to interact with the creatures we had been studying and reading about all year. It was also interesting to see how genuinely interested everyone was in actually learning about these species. No one acted as though they did not want to be there, and everyone was extremely hands-on and inquisitive. Seeing everyone in this attitude was amazing. We eventually made out way back to the boat and rested for a bit before eating dinner and going to bed.
Day 3
Santa Cruz Island, Blimp Hangar Cave
Weather: clear, sunny, slightly windy
SS: Calm
We woke up this morning dreading our Dive. I don’t know quite why we were so upset about going into the ocean because we didn’t regret going on any of the snorkels. Every single time we dove, we would always be happy that JH we ended up participating. This Snorkel spot was very memorable, with the giant cave and the awesome surroundings. We started out by exploring the cave. I was able to do some diving this time because I wore socks under my flippers. This helped the flippers to stay on my feet instead of sinking like the last dive. Another good thing about this dive was the overall lack of seaweed. This made swimming and visibility much easier. Inside the cave, the ground varied in height and depth, and we were able to spot numerous Garibaldi fish swimming among the crevices. We needed to be careful to stay away from the edges though because the rocks were very sharp and the tide would affect. After a while, a lot of the people started to head back to the boat, but I stayed out with a couple other people to continue exploring. We swam out of the cave and that was probably the best part. We ended up finding much more to see outside the cave. Most of the people went back to the boat because they were cold, and I honestly don’t blame them. Many of them didn’t listen and got 3mm suits instead of the 7mm that was recommended. I was actually getting hot in my suit towards the end of this snorkel session. We ended up exploring the surrounding cliffs and some of the inlets, spotting much more fish and sea anemones. Actually, that was one of the more interesting features of this area was the large amounts of sea anemones. They practically covered the ground and turned the seafloor green. Samuel and I took some video, then we moved towards the cave on the far side. By this time, it was only Samuel, Zoe, and I that were left. We saw a seal and her pup playing and eating probably no less than ten yards away from where we were floating. This experience was very cool, as this was the first time that I had seen seals from that distance before. The seal was shy at first but eventually ventured closer. She seemed very protective of her pup, but she wasn’t aggressive at all luckily. After swimming in the cave, we headed back to the boat, really tired but very happy at getting a first-row seat to one of the best sites of the entire trip. I am almost positive that we would not have been able to see the seal if everyone had stayed out in the water.
Common name: Green Anemone
Genus: Anthopleura
Species: Sola
Class: Anthozoa
Phylum: cnidaria
Fish Dissections
I am not really a big fan of getting my hands dirty in dissections, there is just something about touching something that is dead that I don’t really particularly enjoy. Anyways, this went fairly easily and thankfully, I was partnered with someone who actually wanted to touch the fish. We learned about all the different body parts and I was enjoying myself up until the very end where we needed to strip the spine of the fishes body and pull out the eyes and brain. The fish we dissected was a Pacific Mackerel which was about a foot long in length. We finished this up rather quickly because we had much more activities planned.
Kayaking
We were given the opportunity to choose between snorkeling and kayaking, and although snorkeling was fun, I was done being cold and I was still a little sore from swimming all that distance earlier. This Kayaking trip was much more fun given that we were able to explore more of a cove area. There was a cave at the back as well that we were able to look around inside as well. This turned out to be quite dangerous though because inside the cave there was another cave that was much smaller. Only big enough for one kayak, some people made their way inside this opening. The problem was not with the size of the cave though. The swell kept flowing into the cave and filling up the small cave. At first, the effect was only a couple of feet, but as more and more people tried going into the cavern, the swell was getting bigger and bigger. Josh got stuck in the cave and just as he got free, a massive swell came in and the water level rose to the roof completely. If he had stayed in there any longer he would have had a serious hit on the head. After this, Johnny and I decided to have a jousting battle with another kayak which turned out to be a fairly stupid idea. We ended up flipping into the freezing cold water. Although I thought that this was hilarious, I was also a little bit mad at myself for wearing the same clothes that I planned to wear on the bus ride home. We spent most of the time watching the divers from the surface and following the bubbles. The water was extraordinarily clear and calm, so it was like watching them through a window. We got dried off and prepared for dinner.
Night Dive
After dinner, We hopped back into our wetsuits and jumped back into the water. While I didn’t particularly enjoy jumping into the water during the day, I was especially reluctant at night. Once we got in through, the water wasn’t that much different in temperature, in fact, I was actually warmer during this dive because this was my first dive wearing a hood. In all the other dive the only part of my body to be cold was the crown of my head, but this time I was able to focus more on actually enjoying watching the bioluminescence which was actually much brighter than I had expected. It was interesting to see how the water lit up and sparkled as we waved our hand through it. It was also terrifying because it was pitch black and we had no idea what was below us. We didn't really see anything else because the flashlights we were given were incapable of penetrating the darkness of the ocean at that depth.
Wrapping things up
After pulling up the anchor and having breakfast, we set sail back to the main island. It Was not boring at all though, as most of the ride home we had dolphins dancing off the bow of the boat. We were able to see a feeding frenzy in which there were whales and all sorts of birds. We were able to get some pretty good footage of the dolphins this time as well because Matthew had his GoPro With him at the time the dolphins were running along the bow. It was awesome to see the looks of amazement on the faces of the people who did not go on the whale watching trip when we spotted the grey whale. The journey home truly was a magical experience that will live with me forever, along with the rest of this incredible trip.
Common name: California Gull
Genus: Larus
Species: Californicus
Family: Anatidae
3 behaviors: they are a scavenger bird. they are protective of their younglings. Also, they tend to be closer tied to humans, eating their food and following fishing vessels.
Adaptation: They have a small spot on their beaks that allow for the younglings to peck at it in order for the parent to regurgitate its food to feed the baby.
Descriptions: Mostly white, but they can be grey in the stages before it reaches adulthood.
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