Living on Island Time

The Channel Islands lie about 20 miles off the coast from Santa Barbara. They are rugged, uninhabited, and visited by a lot of divers, hikers and kayakers from the mainland. Including us! We sailed out of Santa Barbara with two good friends, a lot of food, beer, margarita fixins and dive gear out the wazoo. It was sunny and warm. For the first time, we felt like we were on vacation. At least for me. Up until that point, it felt like adventure - fun, but striving for the next port, the next leg of the trip.

For five days, we had no agenda other than to dive, eat, repeat. Chris and Eric acted as the noble hunters leaving the boat daily to fish by gun and gather scallops. Chris G. and I acted as the grateful women and she bravely filleted the fish as I stood by with a slightly wrinkled nose. Eric almost lost a finger to a scallop, as it was fighting to stay closed. We stuffed ourselves with fish tacos and bacon-y, garlicky scallops. We played cards by lamplight and told at least two ghost stories. It was great.

The diving was excellent as well. For me, it was a trip of firsts. I saw my first seal underwater! My first nudibranch! My first garibaldi! And, the pinnacle of neat-o, my first wreck.

The Peacock is a WWII minesweeper that was sunk in the 1970s after a long and murky history (the most interesting thing about it is that it may have once served as a floating brothel, as there were many mirrors and scraps of red fabric found aboard after the wreck - hee). It lies about 50 yards off of Scorpion Rock, near where we were anchored. We all had tried to find it on our first dive, to no avail. Chris G and I went back the next day to try again after getting some additional advice from a helpful Park Ranger (go National Park Service!)

After struggling mightily to get into my SCUBA gear in the slightly choppy water (imagine putting on a floating backpack while wearing a giant rubber onesie and being pulled underwater sideways...actually this is a terrible analogy...for those of you who dive, you understand, and for those of you who don't, it suffices to say that it is awkward, and I am not graceful), Chris and I descended through the water and touched down at about 65 feet. We swam in the direction we thought it might be, but after a minute or two, still saw nothing but sand. Thinking we'd missed it again, we turned to go back. We kicked through the water, and suddenly something large began to take shape though the gloom. We looked at each other in excitement as we could start to make out that it was the hull of a ship. We had stumbled on it after all! Or, we had used our superior skills of underwater navigation to locate the find. Either way.

Duuuuuuudes, it was so cool. A wreck creates a kind of artificial reef, so there were tons of fish (big ones), hydrocorals, anemones, and two more curious seals to see. Plus there's the the bonus of seeing the architecture of the vessel itself. There looked to be parts of the rudder, a mast, and a big structure that was kind of a ring supported by several diagonal posts. Dunno what that was. I can see why divers geek out over wrecks. We explored the wreck for a while, swooping down and around all the various structures, and then surfaced with triumphant smiles.

All I can say is I feel lucky.