Landing Cove on Santa Barbara Island
This is a photograph of the only point of entry to the island—Landing Cove. Near the lower right hand corner is the dock, which has a crane to lift supplies off the boat. In the upper left are the bunkhouse, the solar panel battery storage house and work space, and the island plant nursery. You have to carry all your food, clothing and supplies up a steep path that goes to the right of the dock back into a canyon and then works its way back left to the bunkhouse. It’s a hard haul. The 100-foot boat that took us out to the island was able to back into the dock area without problem. Our supplies were then craned up to the dock. But the sea was rough on the day we had to leave. They couldn’t bring a big boat that close to shore. So they lowered a zodiac (a small motor-powered skiff) into the ocean, which came to pick us up. We had to hand our stuff down an eight foot ladder while the driver ran the nose of the skiff against the ladder to keep it (somewhat) stationary. It was hairy, a little scary. But the guy knew what he was doing, and we made it without incident. (Thank you, Dwight.)
It’s a funny thing to me that next weekend Judy and are going to Manhattan. We’ll be going from one island with a population of 2 to another with a population in the millions. And then in early February, we’re going back to Santa Barbara Island for a week. I’ve been doing some good work on the book there.
The Path to Landing Cove
Tags: Santa Barbara Island
