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I
’m stranded on Santa Barbara Island, 38 miles off the coast of Malibu, California, but it might as well be
Gilligan’s Island
. The one-square-
mile-isle is part of the Channel Islands National Park, and actually lies within Santa Barbara County. It’s remote, without beaches, and there’s
little cover from gale-force winds. The seams of my tent are splitting, the gap widening with each passing day. On day seven, neither the
Island Packers ferry nor the National Park Service boat will make the three-hour slog in this gale to pick me up.
Passing time becomes difficult. I’m tired of listening to my weather radio and the all too familiar National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s (NOAA) report on the current wind event, but I’m a photographer and that’s why I was dropped off on this treeless isle. Since
I’ve been here, I’ve kayaked around the island four times before the winds whip up early every morning. I run the lonely trails more times than I
can count. Maybe I’ll walk out to Cat Canyon and photograph the friendly American kestrel that allows me to approach within 10 feet of its rocky,
lichen-covered perch.
My food cache is running thin. I’m down to one bag of trail mix and some disgusting energy bars that I fight to choke down, but I’m good on
water. There’s no reliable, year-round water source on Santa Barbara Island, and because of that the only terrestrial animals thriving on the islet
are the native deer mouse and the secretive island night lizard.
winter
|
spr ing
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