Thursday 19th June: Hiking Santa Cruz Island

We woke to another hot morning, and realised we were entering our second heat wave of the trip. At about 5am I had woken to a Santa Cruz Island fox peering into our tent – luckily they are the size of a cat and far from ferocious having been hand reared in order to reintroduce them to the island.

We packed up camp, then paused trying to stop the sweat long enough to put some suntan lotion on. I was tempted to run and shout past the spear fishermen camp, who had woken me in the early hours running around with their spears, but I figured I probably should save my energy. Besides, I felt guilty for having considered one of them tripping and impaling themselves – I didn’t fancy the sort of retribution that could have resulted from such thoughts.

Tony had recommended a 10-12 mile hike which took us from Scorpion Landing to Montana Ridge, along it and down into Smugglers Cove before returning to Scorpion Landing. It was 9am and after the first gentle climb we were like boiled lobsters. The heat was stifling but the views and the remoteness simply stunning. Arid plains of California don’t normally appeal to me, but the rugged terrain and the knowledge that we were the only humans on the hike added a certain charm to the island.

As we walked along Montana Ridge we went off the trail and clambered along rocky precipices. Tony had told us always to go left if there was a choice between left and right. It was hard to tell if we were going the right way, but below us we could see a beaten track through the dried grass.

Climbing down was tougher than up. Every time I slipped Tim partook in a little sympathy slide. Twice we landed on our bottoms.

Almost back at the path we found our first lone tree and cowered in the shade – I would have fought a rattle snake for the space had there been a contest.

Coming down to Smugglers Cove Tim wondered why/what one of the boats seemed to be pulling. As we stumbled down to the beach, we were out of water and on our last cereal bar – ‘4 miles an hour, it will only take us 3 hours’ Tim had said at the start. Standing on the beach was the island ranger and a few metres away, also on the beach was a motor cruiser – money obviously buys you neither taste nor intelligence. For two high tides, harbour rescue (apparently this happens so often that the Coast Guard refuse to help) had been trying to refloat the stink ship.

Bedlam at the beach did not stop here. A guy was trying to get his dinghy back out through the surf with his two children. They had already tipped out on the way onto the beach and their boat remained an unachievable destination in the distance. One of the harbour rescue guys tried to help but in the end, they put the boat in the rangers pick up , the children in the cab and off they went to Scorpion Landing where they could get back out without having to surf any waves.

Of course I could tell these stories with great indignation, but we had run out of water and with great embarrassment had to ask the ranger for a top up. The rest of our hike was up a dirt track road. With a mile to go we were out of water again and we were practically running to get back to the campsite with the only taps on the island – apart from those in the ranger unprimitive home of course.

Running into the campsite people looked at us as Tim broadcast water at my head. Tim seemed to enjoy my screams so much he completely drenched me – if there had been an ice bucket I would have stuck my head in it, I was that hot. Tim didn’t reciprocate in allowing me the delight in drowning him and instead delicately washed his face.

Being organised as ever, we had not brought enough food onto the island with us. Having shared a bagel and one carrot for lunch, back in Ventura we sat down for Italian in the Marina, then cycled back to McGrath State Beach where we had camped a few days earlier.

I thought we had been lucky in not having experienced too much obnoxious camp behaviour – apart from spear fishermen on a rampage of course, but stationed in our hiker/biker section was a roaring generator. 20 m or so away was a camp of people, microphones and all. It amused me that in not wanting to hear the generator, obviously aware of how irritating it was, they had put it right next to other campers. Luckily at 10pm they turned it off. I have to admit I was surprised that the ranger didn’t come and give them a citation for turning it off 2 hours after the designated ‘no generator’ time – I was beginning to contemplate the existence of citizens arrest/citations in the States.