At this point I can hardly imagine what we are getting ready to see today!  I have been wanting to visit Channel Islands for a many years now, and I am finally making it happen.  

The day started out with a foggy mist but turned out to be beautiful weather for exploring Channel Islands National Park for about 5 hours.

I felt obliged  to take a picture of this off shore rig, since I work in the oil industry as I have never been this close up to one.

James!  Thanks so much for making this happen for me.  If you could have only protected me from the seagull poop bomb I would be more thankful;)

We had a nice surprise visit from a huge pod of short-finned pilot whales.  They were surrounding us for a while, so the captain made a long courtesy stop for us to gawk and snap some great photos.  Don’t let the name fool you as they are actually a member of the dolphin family but they have commonalities with the whale.

Right around here is where we set up our picnic overlooking the sea lions.  This is also where I got showered with seagull poop right after our picnic.  We were sitting there enjoying the view and our wine when a flock of seagulls started to fly overhead.  James warned me to take cover: obviously I tried to play it too cool–TRIED and FAILED.  I really got hit badly and had hardly anything to remove this smelly waste from my face, hair, arms, shirt, pants, and shoes.  Suffice it to say, it didn’t ruin our time on the island.  It still turned out to be a great experience.  You must visit if you are out in SoCal!  Don’t let the seagulls turn you off from making this awesome day trip.

Viewer discretion advised:  looks like this poor lil guy didn’t make it.  I think the others were mourning the young fella’s death and maybe they were singing “Amazing Grace” in this sad moment.  This article could have something to do with the baby sea lion’s death.

The caves

Heading back from our awesome day journey

Pictured below are some brown pelicans I spotted on our return boat ride.  Here is a good random story about a baby brown pelican.