Kelpscape

Santa Cruz Oil Rig

I'm not sure who decided that Santa Cruz might be a good place to drill for oil.  This rig seems to date to the 1930's. It's on the trail from Scorpion to El Montanon Ridge and on toward the south side of the island.  When the weather is clear the view from up here is great; this time it was completely socked in.  This rig seems really small compared with the offshore oil platforms, all of which lie on the mainland side of the channel. A lot of the oil there lies dangerously near the surface, though, and the original wells, on piers, may have been drilled with similarly small equipment. Now oil exploration and extraction aren't allowed within the Channel Islands National Park or Marine Sanctuary.

Oatgrass Meadow on Santa Cruz

It's hard to believe that the grass in this image is an invasive species, but I believe it's oatgrass, native to Europe.  It's interesting to think about what this scene looked like before oatgrass grew here.  The oatgrass made good pasture for generations of sheep: I think of the sheepherding operations here on Santa Cruz Island, which TC Boyle described convincingly in When the Killing's Done. I'm not sure what, if any, animals depend on it now. It's hard to answer the question: if we want to turn the clock back for the island ecosystem, when should we set it?  What species deserve to stay here, and which must die out?  It seems to me that the ones that exist only here, or are extremely rare, deserve to stay. Species that other species depend upon deserve special consideration. Species that are so common that they choke out others should be trimmed back. And from my perspective, survival of a species is more important than survival of an individual.

Sweet Fennel with Anise Swallowtail

The anise swallowtail butterfly may be native to California including the Channel Islands; although it may have moved here from back East.  However, the sweet fennel that its caterpillar feeds upon is invasive. In fact, it choked off huge sections of Santa Cruz Island: achieving 50 to 90% coverage in spots. It is native to Europe: in Greek it gave its name to a famous battle, and race to commemorate the messenger: marathon. It's thought to have escaped from gardens, perhaps on the island or simply as a hitchiker from the mainland. It has the potential to increase coverage still further, as the climate changes.  As I've found in my backyard, it's hard to get rid of: I don't like to use herbicides, so I usually cut it down each time it appears, and dig out what roots I can.  After a few years, the roots often dry up completely.  I spared this plant for the caterpillar.

Speed Kills Whales

Along with other passengers aboard the Islander, I watched a threesome of humpback whales in the Santa Barbara channel on Sunday, north of Anacapa and near the shipping lanes.

As the LA Times reports, several environmental groups including the Environmental Defense Center have filed a petition requesting a mandatory 10-knot speed limit within California's national marine sanctuaries, including the Channel Islands sanctuary. Presently, when whales are in the channel, ships are advised of the fact to slow down; but few do.

Ship strikes routinely kill whales, both inside and outside the sanctuaries. Blue, humpback and gray whales visit the sanctuary in significant numbers; many others  occasionally.  The whales may not hear the ships coming; ships have become quieter since the advent of hull shapes that minimize the wake (which, after all, takes energy to produce and so robs power from the ship's engines). Whales have terrific hearing but the channel is a very noisy environment.

The whales tend to congregate near the 200-meter depth contour, as records of whale sightings from the Cascadia Research Collective and Channel Islands Naturalist Corps suggest. There's some suggestion that they feed there; on the other hand, a lot of them seem to be engaged otherwise; the captain suggested that the 3 we saw were mating, for example.

The ships tend to stay pretty well within the shipping lanes (these are on either side of the pink stripe in the maps). That cuts across the 200-meter line at the East end of the channel, where we saw the trio of humpbacks on Sunday. That's definitely the most crowded part, with boats making the hop from Ventura or Oxnard to the islands at their closest approach to the mainland, as well as ships and whales. In principle, ships could travel through the channel more slowly, or take the longer path around the islands.  That would add time to the passage from the Far East, making factories in the Far East less competitive with US manufacturing. That doesn't seem particularly undesirable. 

The people who control the speed of the ships are their owners, most of them in other nations; ships are expensive and the owners are keen to have their investment pay off.  From their standpoint, from a purely economic perspective, faster ships and shorter routes between the same ports pay off faster.

 It would seem to me, the blogger, that big ships should avoid areas crowded with whales and boaters; or at least drive carefully and pay a premium as well.  The cost of futons may increase a little bit; but I'd be glad to pay a little more to give the whales plenty of space for their fun.

 

Aeolidia papilosa with Unfurled Hood

We spotted a Aeolidia papilosa at Reguio this weekend, with hood extended.  I assume that there's a hapless but tasty anemone underneath that this one is delightedly sucking in.  This was smaller than the individual we spotted last week.

The water at Refugio was 47F by my gauge, 43F by my buddy's.  We had strong winds all last week and some deeper water mixed with the shallow.  It must be really cold deeper down.  This is as cold as I've ever experienced at Refugio -- and in June! 

 

Here it is again, showing a neighboring sand dab watching with a disgusted expression.

Opalescent Nudibranch

Apparently, opalescence is a specific property of some semi-transparent materials. Light appears bluish when reflected at an angle from inside these materials, but reddish-yellow after passing through the material. Opals are an example.  This opalescent nudibranch was on the wall near Rat Rock.  Actually to me it looks like this nudibranch is lit up like a neon tube from the inside.

Zoanthids

These zoanthids were on the front, or north, side of Anacapa, near Rat Rock. They made me think of a cave covered with zoanthids that I once dived in, near Eaglehawk Neck in Tasmania.  Zoanthids are popular pets, for aquarists.

Sea Lion

Sea lions are hard to photograph because they move fast. They love to flaunt their grace underwater, mocking  divers.  They occasionally pause for an instant to strike a pose, then move on to the next one or shoot out of sight.  It's tricky to focus.  This one visited a group of scuba divers at The Gap, on the south side of Anacapa, during a 2-day trip on the Peace.

Thin Black Line

This line seems to be made up of different kinds of birds, some of them cormorants, as seen from the dive boat Peace.  I like how they have lined up at the boundary between flat and wavy water.  We're told that this marks where water from different places mixes, so perhaps there's a lot of activity, and life, under the surface right there.  This line was in the gap between Anacapa and Santa Cruz, where there's a lot of mixing of water masses. It's wonderful to imagine a curtain of diving birds, fish, and plankton. But, chances for bluewater diving in this current-filled area are slim. 

Scrubbrush Nudibranch

 
This nudibranch looked like a scrubbrush, lying on a field of sea apples south of the big ledge at Refgugio.  According to Pacific Coast Nudibranchs, it dines on anemones -- of which there were few nearby!  It was making rapid progress toward the big ledge and its extensive corynactis ranches.