Fearless Travel

The other side of California’s beauty is as far removed from the ocean - both geographically and aesthetically - as possible and still remain in the state. THe Mojave Desert is a place of incredible temperatures and stunning beauty. A former co-worker of mine goes out to the Mojave every spring and takes pictures of the flora that flourishes there after the winter rains. Also, she occasionally finds pictoglyphs left by the area’s first inhabitants, the Mojave tribe of Native Americans. They are essentially extinct as an independent tribe, but they lived in the desert for hundreds of years until the Spanish missionaries came (and accidently brought small pox). So, here are some beautiful pictures of life in the deserts of California. I hop you enjoy.

As always, I look forward to comments or requests

Seals are different from Sea Lions; the latter having external ear flaps and the other doesn’t. Other than that, I don’t really know what the difference is - evidently the Seals and Sea Lions do, though.

Anyway, the Santa Barbara channel has a small smattering of Harbour Seals (see pics, below) who like to breed on the pebbly, rocky beaches where they are protected from predators (including humans). The pups shown were born this last spring and were taken by an
acquaintance of mine who is quite the amateur photographer. She sits for hours with her telephoto lens waiting to snap a picture of some seals and seal pups, so I hope everyone appreciates all her time and effort - I know I do. [By the way, sorry for the long absence, I was a little busy being buried under with freelance work - I hope you understand and I’ll try to keep such things from happening in the future]

To come full circle to our outing along Coal Oil Point, it occurs to me that you all have no idea what it looks like. I’ve fixed that little problem, below. But first, there’s something I have to talk about; Sloughs (pronounced SLEWZ). Sloughs dot the wetlands where Santa Barbara county meets the ocean. These are semi-saltwater marshes that absolutely teem with life. I have more pics hidden somewhere, but there’s a pic of a crane fishing for frogs or small fish. The Sloughs are a buffer between the run-off from the mountains and the more delicate ocean. In dry months, the water will completely evaporate, leaving weeks of stinky mud smells until the beds dry up as well. When it finally does rain, the critters come back so fast, it’s mind boggling. Frogs are usually the first back and within a day of a heavy rain, their mating choruses are so loud it can be hard to sleep with the windows open. Hundreds of thousands of tree and swamp frogs yealling “Hey baby! Hey baby!” in their chirping awesomeness. No frogs nor chirping now though. Enjoy the pics:

In addition to all the cool critters that I’ve already mentioned living in the Santa Barbara channel, there are several pods of bottle-nose dolphins. There are those who live close to the shore - they like to herd fish toward the surf then “shoot the curl” of the swells with their mouths open to catch them - and there are those who live out near the islands, in the deeper waters. The video below is of some of the in-shore ones. A bad side effect of living close to shore is that run-off from human civilization - animal waste, garden and farm chemicals, motor oil from the streets, etc. - tends to cause serious health problems in these guys. As a result, they tend to die fairly early compared to their deeper water cousins. I have no idea why  these guys don’t swim further out; maybe the shallow waters are their traditional hunting grounds. Maybe they don’t realize that this condition is not normal and are just trying to survive. And on that happy note, here’s the dolphins:

Coal Oil Point is located in Goleta, which is west of Santa Barbara. It’s called that because of the naturally-occurring gas an oil leaks. This results in some cool effects to the water as well as tar on the beach and occasionally a stinky surf. Animals have adapted over the eons and even the Chumash Indians who once lives here used the tar to caulk their boats. In the late 19th century, this point was used by whalers watching for their prey and now is home to a few, mostly non-operational oil platforms. Here are some pics:

Here’s a cool thing: Legendary “Doors” frontman Jim Morrison wrote “Crystal Ship” while laying on the beach at Coal Oil Point and looking out at platform Holly (he was also partaking of certain recreational pharmaceuticals at the time).

As I mentioned before in an earlier post, there are lots and lots of sea mammals in the channel of Santa Barbara. The most abundant of these are the sea lions. During our cruise (the one I mention below) were were shadowed by young sea lions who found us a curiosity that was too good to pass up. Luckily, our boat uses an impeller, not a propeller, which means there is no whirling blades of death awaiting the unwary, yet playful, marine mammals.

Sea lions are so plentiful that there are a variety of ways to see them in Santa Barbara, from the super cheap “Captain Ron” tour (about $5 for an hour’s tour) to the more expensive “Land Shark” amphibious tour of Santa Barbara and the harbor.  If you get sea sick (or, if you’ve never been on a boat before) I’d recommend taking dramamine or chewing on candied ginger to calm you stomach because both methods I mentioned above can (and usually do) get choppy.

The sea lions have tons of food available in the channel, usually feeding on sardines until they get sleepy. Then they “haul out” onto any available platform and sleep - WHAT A LIFE! Here are some pics of our sea lion friends - including them sleeping on an oil drilling platform!

A small chain of islands are visible off the coast of Santa Barbara county (and parts of Ventura county)  which are called the “channel islands” and while they hold their own mystique (which I’ll get into in another post), they also serve to direct the ocean currents through the Santa Barbara channel. The water through the channel is cold and chock-full of nutrients that are washed down the coast of North America from as far north as Alaska. This draws all sort of creatures, but most spectacularly it draws WHALES. Blue Whales, Humpback Whales, Gray Whales, and even Orcas (hunting seals and sea lions which thrive on the fish which eat said nutrients) are drawn to the channel because of the abundance of food available year ’round. There are several companies which make their living offering tours of various quality to tourists - the one I’ve been most satisfied with is Condor Express , out of the port of Santa Barbara, though there are lots more that offer comparable service both in and around Santa Barbara.

One catch, though, is that they are fairly expensive. A way around that if you’re a budget-conscious traveler (and who isn’t these days) is to check out Santa Barbara organizations like the Natural History Museum - why? Because they sometimes offer programs related to the ocean and environmental awareness programs which can significantly reduce the costs of marine excursions. For example, in May 2008, there was a program sponsored by the Museum in conjunction with Save Our Shores , a non-profit environmentalist organization,  where ordinary citizens and tourists could take a cruise to see the natural oil and gas leaks in the Santa Barbara channel and their effects on the marine ecology, including adaptations by the local fauna. During that cruise - which was on a Condor Express catamaran - we saw sea lions, dolphins, sea otters, jellyfish, herons, cranes, other sea birds and (most importantly) a mother Humpback whale and her calf feeding on the krill in the channel. Over full with the abundant food, both whales ventured toward our boat to check us out - it was a mind-blowing experience!

Final analysis: The tour was two and a half hours and cost $15 each passenger. The regular price of a cruise through the same company costs anywhere from $48 to $94 per adult passenger. Even at the “spring” season rates, we paid less than 1/3 of the normal ticket price.

Lesson #1 when visiting Santa Barbara; find ways to reduce your costs by linking up with non-profit or public education services:

Other Links:

http://www.sbnature.org/seacenter/ - TY Warner (of Beanie Baby fame) Sea Center

http://ce.sbcc.edu/events.htm - Santa Barbara City College’s adult extension programs

If you’ve never been there, the strip of land upon which Santa Barbara (the city) lies is a bare five or so miles wide. Bounded by ocean to the south and mountains to the north, there is very little room to expand. Santa Barbara used to be much bigger. In 2004, a small section of Santa Barbara broke away and formed its own city, called “Goleta” which is a Spanish word for a type of small sailing vessel used for fishing.

Goleta is the “rural” part of the city where avocado and lemon groves are almost as numerous as houses. Houses in Goleta go for about $1 million for a small, three bedroom/two bath ranch style house. Most of the people who live in this particular little strip are either long-time residents whose family migratedtherein the 1960’s (or earlier) or they are wealthier people who use the area as a “bedroom” community.

Oddly enough, Goleta is looked down upon by residents of Santa Barbara (the city) as if it were a slum. I was standing in the post office one day and a woman ahead of me was opening a PO box account. The clerk asked her if she wanted a Goleta or Santa Barbara address to which the woman exclaimed (loudly) “Dear God! Santa Barbara, of course!”

Of course, while Santa Barbarans (they like to call themselves “Santa Barbarians” - aren’t they cute) look down their nose at Goletans, they in turn are looked down upon by the residents of Montecito. For those of you unfamiliar with the area; that’s where Oprah lives. Oh, and John Cleese. And Mick Fleetwood. And so on and so forth. I was watching a debate in the city council of Montecito where a woman distinguished herself as being a Montecitan by repeating the name of the street she lived on and included the block number - seems SB and Montecito share the street.

Ah, elitism at its very worst. Here’s the facts about the solid string of houses, roads, and businesses which make up Goleta/Santa Barbara/Montecito:

They have almost exactly the same weather (being no more than 30 miles from downtown Goleta to downtown Montecito). They all are within 5 miles (usually less) of the beach. The houses all cost well over $1 million (and upwards of hundreds of millions).  They are filled with the same kinds of people - rich snobs and down-to-earth people who’d give you the shirt off their backs (it’s usually warm enough that you don’tneed a shirt anyway). And the cost of gasoline, groceries, and clothes cost exactly the same in all three.

So, the question left, of course, is who do Goletans look down upon? Pretty much everyone else int he United States

Still, if you’d like to visit, it is a wonderful place to see (and promptly leave).

Having recently left California’s south coast, I find myself…What? You didn’t know California has a SOUTHERN shore? Of course it does! Here, look at the map and I’ll prove it to you:

Start from the south, near San Diego and note that the coast drifts North-Westerly. Right around Santa Monica, it starts heading almost due West, curves North-West and then West again at around Ventura/Oxnard. From there to Lompoc, the coast actually faces more toward Antartica than Asia which allows for some awesome climate.

I resided near Santa Barbara, California. For those fo you unused to California weather, the average temperature of the area is about 72 degrees (this doesn’t mean it’s a constant temperature, though - trust me!). Santa Barbara was the place I called home for several years, during which I traveled extensively throughout the country and even to the Middle East. It seems an oddly apropriate place to start this blog; Its weather is bland (sorry, California, but it’s true - weather is so constant it’s like steamed white rice: predictable, unchanging, and taken for granted by everyone) and the people a microcosm of America. In this Blog, I will use comparisons to Santa Barbara to juxtapose the places I travel and report on.
Welcome to Fearless Travel - Boldly Going….anywhere, really!