We recently had dinner with a friend of Adam's from middle school and his wife, who live in the area. The friend confirmed something we had noticed on our own: When waiting in a line, people in Santa Barbara stand unnaturally far from each other, and they get agitated if you close the gap. While I was waiting for the boat to Santa Cruz Island to board, this happened:
Color me agitated! Am I becoming a Santa Barbaran? And/or was he simply not from around here? "Just offer to let him go ahead of you," texted Adam, after I apprised him of the sitch.
"You don't know me at all," I replied.
The man and his wife were from Ft. Myers, Florida, as I learned on the otherwise uneventful boat ride because naturally they sat next to me. Somehow, we didn't get released to explore the island till 10:50 a.m., a half hour later than I expected, so I had to hustle. My goal was to be alone on a beach the way that write-ups about the Channel Islands all go on about—and which Adam and I didn't experience on our visit last week.
First, I took the dirt road over a ridge to Smuggler's Cove. The little island on the horizon is Anacapa. The cloud overhead reminded me of Schleprock from the Flintstones.
When I came upon that crow, it was standing in the middle of the road, pecking away at the ground-nesting bees we noticed last week. And here's Modern Hiker on the orchard:
By 3.4 miles, you’ll be on your second big chunk of the descent, passing through a surprisingly large remnant of one of the olive orchards that still stands on the island—a remnant of its ranching and agricultural past. The olive trees were planted in the late 1800s and many of them are still doing fine today, despite many decades of not being tended to by the farmers who used to live here.
The beach and picnic tables at Smuggler's Cove were inviting, but because I was worried about time, I kept on moving, over the second ridge, to Yellowbanks Beach. Here's Modern Hiker on the building below, just inland from Smuggler's Cove:
This building was used while the Island was an agricultural ranch, and it was also used as a makeshift hunting lodge when conservationists were hunting feral pigs and sheep that were wreaking havoc on the island’s ecosystem. It was built in 1889 and you can still see the quarry used to get the stones to build it just to the west of the house. This building is being restored and renovated and is off-limits to the public.
The National Park trail map says that there's an unmaintained trail to Yellowbanks beach, but the AllTrails app has the road just ending. They're both correct: After the road unceremoniously ends (at the edge of a cliff), you take a narrow, steep, extremely slippery (thanks to the dead grass stalks) path to the beach.
I fell once, but I hesitate to use that verb; what I did was less frantic, more like my body chose to sit without letting my mind know. That said, it did occur to me that I would be way up shit creek if I had, say, seriously hurt my knee right then, because I doubt anyone else made the trip to Yellowbanks that day. (Or makes it very often.) I had visions of being stranded, à la Island of the Blue Dolphins..., which I only just now learned is based on a true story, making it even more terrifying.
As for the beach, it was striking, but I don't know that a beach without sand is a beach. The hamburger-size rocks moved underfoot—not enough to feel dangerous, but enough to make getting around difficult. I came very close to taking the driftwood shaped like a crab, but park rules prohibit removing anything.
On the return to Smuggler's Cove, I spotted some wild fennel that had been sprayed with herbicide. Adam and I saw a guy doing the spraying on our last visit, and we were surprised, to say the least. The National Park Service volunteer said that the fennel is so invasive that it was to be killed.
There were a couple of other hikers at Smuggler's Cove, but the beach was big enough for all of us. My cheese sandwich was a warm, squishy mess at this point, and it tasted fantastic.
The beach was better suited to beachcombing, or whatever the window-shopping equivalent of beachcombing is. I got all excited about this shell, and I could feel my virtuousness breaking down. Then I turned it over....
I had lots of time left, but I knew I'd be happier waiting near the dock rather than three miles away, so I hit the road again. A fox joined me for a while.
According to AllTrails, I walked 11.6 miles at a pace of 18:47 minutes per mile. The app had the total elevation gain at 686 feet, which felt way off. Sure enough, Modern Hiker says the elevation to Smugglers Cove is 675 feet, and Backpacker adds another 544 feet for Yellowbanks. Either way, I deserved a break.
P.S. I took the occasion of Adam being gone to watch Beyoncé's "Homecoming" concert documentary. She's an unbelievable talent, a force, and the whole thing was clearly a triumph. But I was surprised how often the camera slowly panned down her body or lingered on her ass. She had to work at superhuman levels to pull the concerts off after having twins, and maybe that's what those choices were about. But they also seemed misguided, at best. Beyoncé's ass is not even close to the most interesting thing about her.
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