Chanel Islands Trip

Have you had spring break yet? Well, during the beginning of my spring break I traveled on a boat to the Channel Islands!  I will show you my itinerary and what I learned along the way!

Day 1:

My mom and I drove to Santa Barbara. We arrived early so we ate breakfast and searched for Geocahes until we needed to board and put our things in the sleeping quarters. Our boat, the Vision, was usually used for diving but today it was for our group.

The group started at the beach by playing some “get to know you” games and some teamwork puzzles. Then we all ventured to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History we explored touch tanks, saw Swellsharks and participated in hands-on activities.

Here I am searching for living creatures among the debris they just brought up in a bucket from the sand of the ocean floor.

Here is some of the cool stuff I found – brine shrimp, brittle stars, broken sand dollars and sand crabs.

After a yummy pizza in the park, we continued with more group games on the beach, including a scavenger hunt and then we walked back to boat to learn the ropes of living on a ship. An important rule was having a bathroom buddy because if you need to go in the middle of the night, while the boat is rocking wildly, you might fall overboard and your buddy will be there to yell, “man overboard!” and a rescue team will come save you.

Day 2:

We woke up at 7 am to have breakfast and meet our captain. Our first stop was Santa Rosa Island, one of the least visited national parks! A long hike was ahead of us, so I found a caterpillar to entertain us.

Along the way we played many games and talked a lot. One of the things I learned was that the Torrey Pine is one of the most endangered species of pine tree in the world. It can only be found in Santa Rosa and one other place in the world, San Diego! I never realized how lucky I was to have them so close. They produce giant pinecones!

At a resting point we found a Native American arrowhead!

We tasted Miners Lettuce and it tastes like extremely salted spinach! Yummy!

I also found more caterpillars!

After hiking for a while we went to the beach and played on some giant sand dunes!!

After an adventurous day on the island, we boarded the ship for some more learning as we dissected a squid. The night ended with various board  and card games.

Day 3 (the final day):

We docked at Santa Cruz Island, Prisoners Harbor. Along our hike, we came across two Island Foxes and two Scrub Jays.

A goal of the trip was a scientific study.  Our group was a bit obsessed with the lizards we kept encountering so it was only natural that our inquiry was about lizards. Our hypothesis was:

We then went around counting lizards and writing our results.

Our final conclusion was the Spotted Lizard seemed to be the dominant lizard on logs on the beach at Prisoner’s Cove.

After our stay at Santa Cruz Island,  it was time for our journey back to Santa Barbara. Along the boat ride back hundreds of dolphins came from miles to around to play in the wakes of our boat. It was an unbelievable sight to see.

After a special weekend of learning and meeting new friends it was sadly time to go home.