On Friday Mike took a much needed day of vacation, and we took a one hour cruise over to Santa Cruz aboard a catamaran operated by Island Packers. We arrived around 7 a.m for boarding.
This is a photo from the back of the boat with Ventura in the background.
Santa Cruz is one of five islands making up the Channel Islands National Park. We were dropped off on the island for the day. This is a picture of the dock where we came ashore.
It is a beautiful island with steep trails and cliffs overlooking the emerald green waters. The island was once inhabited by the Chumash Indians. We walked quite a few miles over a period about 5 hours on the island. We were definitely ready to board the boat when it returned.
On the way back to the coast we we were fortunate to see several humpback whales. It was difficult to get a really close up picture, because we couldn't get too close, but we managed to get two fairly decent tail shots.
