These photos are out of date, but I have been sorting through photos and trying to get rid of "digital clutter" because our hard drive is full, so I thought I would share some.
Labor Day weekend we traveled up to our old stomping grounds in Ventura to meet up with my husband's brother and his family. He has a friend who has a boat, a really nice boat, who was going out to Santa Rosa Island for the day, so we got to ride along. The boat had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen - the kind of boat you could live on. Many of the boats docked near this one were people's homes, at least temporarily. The weekend gave us a little sneak peek into another subculture that we don't get to see very often: the life of luxury boat people.
The ride to the island took just over an hour. The ocean was fairly calm, but we didn't see any dolphins or other large marine mammals, aside from sea lions. A pod of large flying fish entertained us on the way home. Once we reached the island, the boat owner anchored in a cove and preceded to get out the boat toys: A giant floating mat (the lilypad), kayaks, paddle boards, snorkel gear, the dinghy. The rest of the afternoon we played in the cove. I don't have many photos of the time in the cove. I was either in the water or reading a book in the sun, so the day wasn't well documented. We had brought our wetsuits and snorkels and masks. With my wetsuit, I was warm enough in the water to stay in for a while. The four-year-old snorkeled around with a lifejacket on, too. Not a lot of color and variety, like in the coral reefs around Guam, but we did see some bright orange Garibaldis, a number of bat rays, and lots of colorful urchins and kelp. Lots of little fish that I don't recognize also, the nameless gray fish that are everywhere.
The best part of the day was the slowness of time. We had no schedule, nothing to do but enjoy this moment and explore this spot. We kayaked to the island's rocky shore, but there wasn't really a beach, nor was there easy access up the cliffs surrounding the cove to hike inland. The point was to be on the water anyway. I tested my fears by kayaking into small sea caves, imagining the fate of that soccer team in Thailand the whole time. Then I paddled out of the cove around the edge of the island into the bigger waves of the ocean. For quite some time I paddled along the coast before beginning to think about paddling back against the current. The current actually wasn't that strong, but the unknown was intimidating enough to make me turn around. I did challenge myself to take the kayak through a small natural bridge, even as I envisioned a wave pushing the little boat into the rock wall and scraping all the skin off my knuckles. I find myself more fearful as I get older; is this because I have heard more tales of death and disaster or because my physical abilities are fading along with my eyesight and hair color (actually that is artificially bright right now, to my frustration.) ?
At one end of the cove there was a large rock island where a whole troop of sea lions were playing. They slid off the rocks into the water, played in the waves, barked at each other, circling around in their games before ooching back up the rock to rest in the sun. That's mostly what our kids did, too. They jumped in and out of the water, off the lily pad and off the decks and roof of the boat, and explored the sea caves in kayaks. They ate and rested in the sun to warm themselves like the glistening, lazy sea lions before sliding back into the water to play some more.
When it was time to return, we felt glutted with sun and salt, and memories of a day of freedom and energy. We planned to sit around the fire that night back at the cousin's house, but instead we all fell asleep early while the kids watched Moana, dreaming of island life.
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