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Despite a bright, full autumn moon, I was still searching for another light that would define the horizon on a star-filled night. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? I kept thinking I was seeing a flickering light, hoping to locate the automated beacon on tiny Santa Barbara Island. I was kayaking from Santa Cruz Island to the smallest island off the California coast, a 44-mile paddle in open-ocean 40 miles off the coast.
What windswept Santa Barbara Island lacks in size, it more than makes up for in volcanic features like sea caves, craggy arches, and towering sea stacks. Its island flora and fauna is in high concentration, and the solitude knows no bounds. Before I left on my excursion to the craggy isle, I knew there was an automated beacon located on the northern tip of the triangular-shaped islet about 195 feet above sea level. Whether it was working weighed heavy on my mind during the length of my kayaking trip.
Lighting the Way
Like all the islands off California, ranching occurred for about 150 years from the 1830s until the late 1980s, and Santa Barbara Island was no different. The Hyder family was the last family to make a go of it on the treeless isle, but left for good in 1922.
Since 1853 the U.S. government had intentions of building a lighthouse on the lonely island. It wasn’t until after the Hyders left that some sort of navigational aid was put in motion. On July 27, 1928, the Bureau of Lighthouses authorized an automatic light on the northern tip of the island, just above Arch Point. The light was to aid in the trans-Pacific and Hawaiian Islands traffic, which follows a path six miles north of the island. In 1934, a second light tower was erected on the south end of the island, on the westerly side overlooking Sutil Island a quarter mile away. The light was located 486 feet above the water and visible for twelve miles.
Both beacons were removed at the outbreak of World War II. They were returned in 1943 when the immediate threat to Los Angeles Harbor was felt to be over. During the war, the Navy took over responsibility for U. S. Coast Guard activities, including aids to navigation, and instituted a program of timed blackouts of coastal lights in case of enemy attack.
Now only one light remains, the one I was banking on to find my way across undulating dark seas to a speck of an island.
Pelagic Pilgrimage
Just after sunrise I rounded the south side of Anacapa Island and its lighthouse on the east end of the narrow isle. For the remainder of the day I kept the Santa Monica Mountains to my east until the late afternoon when overcast skies cloaked most of the range. I was paddling over a narrow underwater ridgeline known as the Pilgrim Banks. The uneven ridge lied 120 feet below me, before dropping off hundreds of feet down on either side of me east and west. Above the ridge California sea lions played alongside my blue kayak and a small pod of five Rissos dolphins spouted then dove beneath the hull of my boat. As it grew darker, migratory seabirds like sooty and black-vented shearwaters swooped toward me before banking away at the last second. On several occasions pelagic ashy storm petrels flew off my bow before their diminutive wing spans vanished in the grey capping waves.
My compass heading was set at 129 degrees south, and after the sun set in the west, a 10 to 15 knot northwest wind picked up steam, creating dark, choppy seas; the tailwind was a welcome advantage propelling me southward at a faster clip.
At around 8 p.m., I could hear the ranger on the radio on Santa Cruz Island communicating with the seabird biologists on Santa Barbara Island. The night before I left, I told the ranger on Santa Cruz that I hoped to reach Santa Barbara Island by 6 p.m. From what I could gather in the wind was that they were growing worried. I was late getting there and I was still a few hours away from reaching the island.
Shafts of Light
Because Santa Barbara Island is only one-square-mile in size, I was fearful I might miss the island altogether. With its high point at just over 600 feet on the south side of the island, the 300-foot-tall sea stack, Sutil Island, a quarter-mile further south, I was putting all my faith into the beacon on the northern tip as I was still an unknown distance away. The difference makers were the full moon and a bright southerly star that lined up perfectly with my compass heading.
After stopping momentarily to fiddle with my paddling leash, I looked up to see what looked like Sutil Island. I frantically searched for Santa Barbara Island next to it, but I wasn’t seeing it because it was ensconced in fog except on its northern tip where I found the flashing light tower. It was also enhanced by beaming shafts of moonlight. I was still about eight miles northwest of the island. Due to some stiff southerly current and those uneven seas, it took over two hours to reach the Landing Cove.
When I climbed up the ladder and onto the upper deck of the dock, it felt like the dock was moving. That’s what 17 hours and 52 miles of nonstop kayaking will do to you, all the while driven by the glimmer of hope that a beacon was burning bright, lighting the way for a weary kayaker.
If You Go: Island Packers is the only ferry that takes visitors to Santa Barbara Island. Call 805/642-1393, or go to www.islandpackers.com.
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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