Author Topic: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island  (Read 4314 times)

Zooport

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Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« on: July 26, 2015, 06:54:59 PM »
Just got back this evening and I wanted to thank all that went on our trip to Santa Cruz Island.  Sup-Position, OCSurf, SUPCheat, and Tom, it was great hanging with you guys and doing the sea caves with fellow Zoners.  5 of my good friends on kayaks also joined.  It was a great group of people and hanging around telling surf stories and cracking jokes was almost as much fun as doing SUP in those awesome sea caves.  I have no vid this year because I left my cameras behind.  Fortunately, I think Ralph took a bunch of stills, so I'm sure he will be sharing those. 
« Last Edit: July 26, 2015, 06:56:51 PM by Zooport »
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SUPcheat

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2015, 09:46:38 PM »
I just got back to Santa Cruz, and yes, a wonderful adventure with the Zoners and friends of Zoners.  Fearless Leader Zooport led through many interesting caves, some of which I did not partake because of chicken shitedness and general coping with the unfamiliar huge ocean experience.  Also, as usual, the sportscam only touches on the actual experience of being there.

I got video, but the cam must have lost energy somewhere about half way through, so I have vids for about half the major day trip.  That's about all short attention span youtubers care about, anyway.  I'll get it collected and posted later.

Tired and dirty, so shower time.
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surfinJ

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2015, 06:41:32 AM »
Nice adventure, looking forward to any visuals.

An annual thing?   ;)

Zooport

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2015, 08:13:13 AM »
Yeah annual; I have led a kayak group every year for many years.  This was the first ever SUP trip though and it was really fun.

« Last Edit: July 27, 2015, 08:44:30 AM by Zooport »
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Tom

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2015, 03:52:30 PM »
Yes, great trip all around and it was a fun and interesting group. None of my pictures are worth posting. Looking forward to next year.

SUPcheat

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2015, 04:37:11 PM »
Did a quick render of my video segments. My thought when taking the segments was to "pre-edit" by taking a lot of short segments. Unfortunately, the camera has a "segment limit" of around 50 or so, which info I could find nowhere in the literature.  So, only about half the trip was recorded, even though there was plenty of battery power and memory chip left. Rather than getting fancy shmantzy and adding music etc., I just did a down and dirty render.

Gives it a choppy, cinema verite quality with gratuitous mumbling commentary and gratuitous accidental crotch shot, but it is what it is. 

Try to intensify the scale, beauty, color and 3D by a factor of ten, you might have an idea of how beautiful it really was.  I'll write an account later when my brain cells are working again.

https://youtu.be/u18YNi-v6as
« Last Edit: July 27, 2015, 04:39:31 PM by SUPcheat »
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supsurf-tw

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2015, 05:41:55 PM »
Looks like a fun trip for sure
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SUPcheat

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2015, 01:16:27 PM »
I always wanted to go out to these islands since Iived in LA (1973-77 at UCLA then 80 for a year).  However, I have avoided boats for decades because of sensitive seasickness, but thought I would try Zooport’s (Fearless Leader) adventure, anyway. The last time I backpacked was about 22 years ago, so i was also concerned that my older body was an unknown.

My idea of the boat was some enormous flat bottomed thing cruising out gently on calm water for about 30 minutes.  I wasn’t really prepared for Captain Ahab’s insane, wave bounding ride in an oversized speed boat, designed to give the customers maximum toss and thrill for over an hour.  However, with one Bonine and advisement provided by Fearless Leader, I didn’t feel a twinge coming or going and even started enjoying the bounding ride after a while, a real first for this landlubber. 

I gather that my time on SUP and the changing waters have given me some sea legs reprieve to my seasickness tendency and over sensitive inner ear.

Camp was a dusty, hot 12-15 minute walk dragging camping stuff to and fro, the SUP-Kayak hybrids provided by Ralph (Sup-position) left on the beach (thanks again, Ralph, for the rental).  The camp itself was very nice, under tall trees, with the basic amenities of a water spigot covered in yellow jackets and some sit down toilets in a shed.  Altogether, these actually made the place quite livable with a tent and small stove.

The native foxes and huge ravens were campground janitors and sneak thieves, but charming, nonetheless.

After settling the camp and tent, we all went down for a preliminary boating around the Scorpion Harbor area.  I was able to adapt the the big, polyester combo SUP kayak.  I got up on it without much difficulty, and after the usual 30 minute adaptation, was able to handle it pretty well. It floated with no problem.  I am glad I did not bring my inflatable.  The inflatable might have been OK, but with the rocks and ocean and rough treatment, even an inflatable might be challenged, so the tough, heavy poly boat was more indicated.

In the evening, we took the hike to cliffs to sit on the lava rocks and watch the fiery sunset before hiking back before dark, cool.

My idea of the party would be some Oar-ons from the Zone, intermingled with middle aged ladies in kayaks leaving their Pomeranians on shore.  I am glad I didn’t know that the party contained two couples who are expert wilderness types who climb mountains, teach mountain climbing, do ski patrol on call at various postings in the Sierra Nevada in winter, and are called in for various tough rescue operations.

 Another buddy “Mike” of three Mikes was a wild white water kayaker. They were delightful people, but this soft slug of lazy civilization felt pretty inept and outclassed by comparison.  My major goal was just to keep up and not slow down the party.

The Oar-ons were no pushovers either: Fearless Leader Zooport, Ralph Sup-Position who is a relentless all around water man, OCSurf, and Tom.  Tom kept me from being the oldest in the party, but was also a toughie, with world traveling experience and surfing all over the world as well.

Our second day was like going into the Twilight Zone of Nature’s beauty.  The camera can’t capture the colors, dimensions, or gorgeousness of the huge, unspoiled bounding ocean, clear aquamarine water, cathedrals of kelp, shifting light and ocean, or the multiple strange critters, including the little red crabs all over the place. I think I saw colors I have never seen before.  I have never been out on the bounding ocean like that, much less on SUP, and the whole experience was to a novice adventurer, overwhelming.  I could balance for a while standing up, but probably at least two thirds of the time went into fail safe kneeling or kayak sitting.  I would also just shift around to rotate the various muscle groups and keep from overusing or cramping.

“Eastern Santa Cruz Island is primarily composed of two Miocene geologic units: the Santa Cruz Island Volcanics and the younger Monterey Formation. The Santa Cruz Island Volcanics consist of andesitic flows and volcaniclastics, and the Monterey Formation is characterized by rhythmically bedded silicious marine mudstones.”

Anyway, there was lots of lava rock in the areas we explored, and it made me wonder if the caves were ancient fumerols.

Traveling away from Scorpion bay to the east, we visited the several sea caves. I chickened out on some of the smaller ones, just did not like seeing big swells tossing the water up and down in them and too much claustrophobia in the little ones.  I did go into some of them, including the last “thrill ride” Pirate’s Cave back and forth.

We lunched at Potato Harbor(question mark??), where a ripped woman in a bikini swam in with us from a boat and did a James Bond Ursula Andress stroll onto the beach to lounge and sunbathe while our group ate lunch and rested for more paddling action.  The beach was gorgeous, the water clear like an ideal Mediterranean dream.

Fearless Leader said our group was the “fastest” on record, which surprised me, since the pace was leisurely to moderate, and none of the action stars really tried to out steam anyone else.

Although the thought of sharks was always present on my mind, especially with the seal rookeries along the coast. the scariest experience of the day was with a big elephant or lion seal of some kind.

Fearless Leader left the group to poke around in a small cave area to see if it was accessible, and I went over to see what he was up to. I heard a loud, nasty bark behind me, and turned to see a large head looking at us and then submerging.  I looked down into the clear water beneath my board to see a huge body looking up at my board and going toward the cave at mach speed like a submarine.  I surmise it was a mom who left her pup in the cave.  She didn’t have to bark twice, I was out of there with Fearless Leader.

After lunch, we went down to Pirate’s Cave, then home.  Paradoxically, there were some large swells, but no wind until the very end.  The last part was a fun and unchallenging standup down winder back to Scorpion Bay harbor.

The camp was fun, but as expected, sleep in the tent with the small air pad was more a series of restless naps interspersed with waking periods.  No fires, just small camp stoves, so 9PM was lights out. The second night was howling winds in the trees all night long.

Saturday shared buffet was fun with bullshitting and stories.  Fearless Leader brought pulled pork, Ralph tossed in a can of chile, somebody else tossed in sausage to make “Oar-on Stew” which I more properly thought of as “Blazing Saddles Stew”.  The guys who snored had set up a separate camp site called “snoring camp” in consideration, and that night it became the “snoring and farting” camp. However, Oar-on sloppy joes hit the spot.

Sunday was breakfast and break down for the return. For some reason, they gave me a 4 o’clock return and everybody else 12 o’clock, but after some neurosis about whether Ralph’s SUP/kayak would go back with Ralph, everything worked out. Sunday was major wind and white capping chop, so our timing turned out to be blessed for the Saturday paddle out.

I decided to drive back to Santa Cruz, although I was a bit dazed and confused. I showered and slept for ten hours, but awoke the next day to find no water in our residential park due to a mains shut down because of a leak.  I just unpacked partially and headed back to Pleasanton. No water, no shower, no surfee that day, plus I was still a bit tired.

I found the whole thing challenging, with the unfamiliarity of the location, the fear of seasickness, bounding ocean, camping and hiking etc.  However, it was doable for the old bod and by the third day, I was starting to adapt nicely just in time to go home, as usual. I probably couldn’t have done the SUP part at all just a year ago.

I am hoping to go back next year, better prepared because of experience and better balanced with another year of SUP under my belt.  Tom has to promise to go so that I am not the oldest.




« Last Edit: July 28, 2015, 01:32:57 PM by SUPcheat »
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Zooport

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2015, 02:19:52 PM »
Wow, thanks for that detailed recount of our journey.  It is fun reliving it through another perspective.  Glad you came along, Carl.
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Sup-position

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2015, 04:55:23 AM »
Compilation of my photos from the Trip..
Will also post in Sessions

https://youtu.be/Dyi21gn1_f8
Ralph
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SUPcheat

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #10 on: July 30, 2015, 10:37:25 AM »
Very well done photo journal, Ralph, thanks.  You caught the segments I didn't.  I will use a Quicktime capture to save a copy for myself.
2013 Fanatic Prowave LTD 9'3"x30.5x@134L
Sunova Speeed 8'10"x29.12@131L
Sunova Flow 8'7"x30.25"@121L
Carbon 9.3x32@163L Hammer
Me: 6'1"@230 lbs 68 years old

Zooport

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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2015, 11:32:25 AM »
Great job, Ralph!  Thanks so much!  Especially since I dropped the ball on the videographer job this year.  You and Carl saved the memory for everyone.
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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #12 on: July 30, 2015, 12:04:45 PM »
Sure extends the Trip when you can revisit it...

Enjoy...
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Re: Back from Zoner trip to Santa Cruz Island
« Reply #13 on: July 30, 2015, 03:07:10 PM »
Great recap in words and pictures.... looks like a good time!

 


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