Land of Liberty Explorers

Santa Cruz is the largest of the Channel Islands. It is about 20 miles from Ventura. The Nature Conservancy owns and maintains 78% of the island. Santa Cruz Island is home to 60 unique species of plants and animals that exist only on the island – including the island scrub jay. We booked our trip to Santa Cruz Island with Santa Barbara Adventure Company. Our trip included the Island Packers fare and an afternoon kayak tour. We left Ventura at 9:00 in route to Scorpion Harbor.

Island Packers *Islander* in Ventura Harbor

Upon arrival a park ranger gave everyone a brief orientation before turning us loose on the island. We spent the morning hiking before our kayak tour.

We really wanted to see an island fox, so our first stop was the campground. On the way to the campground, we saw the elusive island scrub jay! The jay’s vibrant blue feathers stuck out against the mostly brown and green landscape. It was really cool to see an animal that you cannot see anywhere else in the world!

After snapping some photos of the island scrub jay, we continued our mission to find a fox. The sneaky foxes realize humans are an easy source of food and congregate in the campground looking to forage for scraps left behind by campers. We were worried we may not see one, but they were generally unafraid of humans and roamed freely. The foxes are about the size of a house cat and very cute.

Potato Harbor Overlook Hike

After spending some time watching the foxes, we set out for the Potato Harbor Overlook. The hike is 5 miles round trip from Scorpion Harbor. The nicely maintained trail gains about 600 feet of elevation on its way to the overlook. Upon leaving the shade of the campground, we entered a mix of dusty canyons and grass covered hills – the Parks Services estimates this is what most of Southern California looked like over 100 years ago!

We reached the bluffs overlooking Potato Harbor and then walked back to Scorpion Harbor along the cliffs above the sea caves that our kayak tour was about to paddle through!

Scorpion Ranch

We arrived back at Scorpion Harbor with enough time to change out of our hiking gear and into our swimsuits for kayaking. Before our tour launched, we briefly explored Scorpion Ranch – which commemorates the days when there was small scale farming and ranching taking place on the island.

Kayaking into the Sea Caves

Our tour group met on Scorpion Beach. The guides outfitted us with personal floatation devices, paddles and helmets. After gearing up, we carried our tandem kayaks down to the beach where we launched. Our guide led us out into the kelp forest. We were impressed by the size of the kelp forest. He encouraged us to grab ahold of some kelp to steady our kayaks while he talked about the route we were taking and how to enter and exit the sea caves.

Paddling through the kelp toward the sea caves

We were nervous, but excited to paddle through the sea caves. Our guide did a good job of helping us time our approach to the cave entrances so that the waves weren’t too high or fast. We especially liked weaving in and out of the smaller sea caves. Some of the caves are impressively deep and dark.

The afternoon waves on the way back to the beach caused us some anxious moments, but our guide offered tips to help keep us steady. The guides agreed that the morning tours generally aren’t as rough, so we’d recommend nervous or inexperienced paddlers take a morning tour! Overall, it was a great experience and we are glad that we booked this package.

Father Serra Cross in Grant Park

After returning to Ventura, we visited Father Serra Cross in Grant Park. Franciscan Father Junipero Serra raised a large wooden cross above his new mission – Mission San Buenaventura in 1782. The Cross now stands in Ventura’s Grant Park. From the Cross, there are great views of the California coast and on a clear day you can see all the way to Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands.