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Description

These are the channel islands off the coast of California by Santa Barbara. There’s a string of eight of these guys, but to me only four of them look like a traditional archipelago string, those are the four that we’re looking at here. So if we’re standing on Anacapa island, as you look toward the sun, the next one is Santa Cruz island, then the next one is Santa Rosa island, and then the next is San Miguel island. I’ve been to Santa Rosa island! They form Channel Islands National park, and after an excruciatingly choppy boat ride out from Ventura, you can have the privilege of camping on a deserted desert island…with the constant creepy sensation that there are eyes on the back of your neck. Well, there are. The US military uses these islands as a strategic base (who ever heard of such a thing! ha!) and also as a training ground and weapons test location. no bombs went off while I was there. That I know of. While the islands used to have people on them and a large cattle ranch and then elk hunting ranch, nowadays they are maintained as a wildlife refuge. Weapons testing and wildlife refuge. The cattle were too destructive to the natural environment, says the government, with a perfectly straight face. To be fair, that was awful cattle land to begin with. The USG had considered using one of the other islands (which would be behind the camera) San Nicholas island as the site of the trinity nuclear test. Anyhow, Santa Rosa’s history with the air force is a long one. There was an entire squadron stationed there in the 1950’s, with two of the biggest radar arrays in California. Allegedly the base was shut down in the mid sixties, and everyone was moved to Vandenberg AFB in Lompoc. I saw plenty of muzzles sticking out of suspiciously placed bushes on inaccessible hillsides though when I was there in what, 2004 or 2005? Or maybe I was just being paranoid. The hills in California tend to have eyes, as I’ve said before. It’s a great site for a military base, sez I, as I’m bouncing along a truck across ridges and down massive canyons on the 50,000 acre island. 83 square miles. It would take an entire day to drive across. A piece of California sunk into dead silence, utterly abandoned, to all appearances. Even the elk were to be shipped off the island shortly after I was there, and they were, all 900 head of elk, moved to a ranch on the mainland. (that must have been a roundup!)

Only birds, and mice, and sea lions. We did encounter a large angry elephant seal on the beach. I’ve never been charged by a tank before. Not an experience I want to repeat.

A deserted island, all alone in this coastal mist, radar stations and early warning military base, a strategic location to be sure, who would they send to man the radar stations? Some fresh grunt out of basic training, some career nco with a security clearance? This, I said, was a unique landscape, something utterly California, yet so lonely and remote, even though you could see the mainland, it was in another world.

I think you see where this is going.

Description

These are the channel islands off the coast of California by Santa Barbara. There’s a string of eight of these guys, but to me only four of them look like a traditional archipelago string, those are the four that we’re looking at here. So if we’re standing on Anacapa island, as you look toward the sun, the next one is Santa Cruz island, then the next one is Santa Rosa island, and then the next is San Miguel island. I’ve been to Santa Rosa island! They form Channel Islands National park, and after an excruciatingly choppy boat ride out from Ventura, you can have the privilege of camping on a deserted desert island…with the constant creepy sensation that there are eyes on the back of your neck. Well, there are. The US military uses these islands as a strategic base (who ever heard of such a thing! ha!) and also as a training ground and weapons test location. no bombs went off while I was there. That I know of. While the islands used to have people on them and a large cattle ranch and then elk hunting ranch, nowadays they are maintained as a wildlife refuge. Weapons testing and wildlife refuge. The cattle were too destructive to the natural environment, says the government, with a perfectly straight face. To be fair, that was awful cattle land to begin with. The USG had considered using one of the other islands (which would be behind the camera) San Nicholas island as the site of the trinity nuclear test. Anyhow, Santa Rosa’s history with the air force is a long one. There was an entire squadron stationed there in the 1950’s, with two of the biggest radar arrays in California. Allegedly the base was shut down in the mid sixties, and everyone was moved to Vandenberg AFB in Lompoc. I saw plenty of muzzles sticking out of suspiciously placed bushes on inaccessible hillsides though when I was there in what, 2004 or 2005? Or maybe I was just being paranoid. The hills in California tend to have eyes, as I’ve said before. It’s a great site for a military base, sez I, as I’m bouncing along a truck across ridges and down massive canyons on the 50,000 acre island. 83 square miles. It would take an entire day to drive across. A piece of California sunk into dead silence, utterly abandoned, to all appearances. Even the elk were to be shipped off the island shortly after I was there, and they were, all 900 head of elk, moved to a ranch on the mainland. (that must have been a roundup!)

Only birds, and mice, and sea lions. We did encounter a large angry elephant seal on the beach. I’ve never been charged by a tank before. Not an experience I want to repeat.

A deserted island, all alone in this coastal mist, radar stations and early warning military base, a strategic location to be sure, who would they send to man the radar stations? Some fresh grunt out of basic training, some career nco with a security clearance? This, I said, was a unique landscape, something utterly California, yet so lonely and remote, even though you could see the mainland, it was in another world.

I think you see where this is going.