Being in the water may not be for me

Day three of the Lisa-G California weekend was a trip to the Channel Islands – a National Park. We had a half day of sea kayaking planned and possibly some hiking.

I knew that I wasn’t a natural in the water, in fact I am a bit nervous about being in the water. I put that behind me and thought the sea kayaking would be no problem when we booked the trip. Oh was I wrong.  After not many tips on how the sea kayak and paddle worked, we were launched onto the water. Literally within two minutes I had flipped my kayak and was flopping around in the cold water.  Thankfully we were wearing wet suits but it was still pretty cold. About 15 minutes later we were paddling through a cave and while I was in the narrow part of the cave, I flipped again. Not only was I feeling cold, but now I was really starting to feel embarrassed and incompetent. Not one other person flipped their kayak for the entire trip.

To make it worse, I wear glasses and had on my prescription sunglasses. I had not brought my actual glasses with me on the kayak. The sunglasses were covered in salt water and one lens never quite cleared. So, I couldn’t see very well unless I closed one eye. If you are nervous around water, trying to paddle a sea kayak around and not fall in while keeping one eye closed isn’t the easiest task. I decided to bag it half way through. Such a feeling of relief in stripping off the wet suit and retreating to a picnic table in the shade to read my book for an hour or so. It was soooo nice.

So, the good parts of the day included seeing sea lions on the ferry ride out to the islands:

When Lisa finished the kayaking trip, we went on a short hike to an overlook. Here are some shots of the islands and the trail along the way:

While we waited for the return ferry we sat on the rocks at the shore and I examined the flora and fauna there – basically seaweed and snails:

Day four was our final day and we got in a bit more beach time at Carpinteria State Beach. I basically spent the entire time crawling around on rocks during low tide taking macros of more anemones, crabs, limpets, and more. This guy (a green-lined shore crab) was hard to capture in photographic evidence but I got him! This macro makes him look big but he’s a little bit bigger than the size of a quarter:

The beach is so relaxing and soothing, it was hard to leave, but we eventually continued our drive on Highway 1 back to the LA area for our return trip to Colorado. Until next time California…