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Ship's Log: Ventura Harbor
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While sailing our boat, a Catalina 470, s/v Last Resort, southbound from Puget Sound we're exploring various ports and anchorages on our way. We’ll be connecting with the nearly 200-boat-strong rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, the Baja Ha-Ha, on October 26th. For now, we’re recovering from a frightening episode that reminded us of the importance of knowing how to retrieve one another in case of a man overboard incident. (Click here to read up on using the Lifesling Inflatable.) As we recuperate and make a few boat repairs, we are exploring another great California port, Ventura Harbor.
Our dealer, Catalina Yacht Anchorage, is located here. They have been absolutely wonderful, giving us a free slip, sending repairmen our way and helping us order replacement parts. The marina is an excellent, clean facility with first-rate services: security, laundry and access to the shops and restaurants of the upscale Ventura Harbor Village.
While exploring through the restaurants and boutiques located in the village, I came across the headquarters of the Coastal Marine Biolabs Integrative Biosciences Program, a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization “dedicated to providing inquiry-based, multidisciplinary, learning opportunities for students and educators.” The Coastal Marine Biolabs (CMB) experience begins with students receiving SCUBA certification training in preparation for the “field work” which will be undertaken in the giant kelp forests of Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. CMB claims students will “use sophisticated scientific tools and tackle challenging concepts that most students only encounter after several years of university studies.” In the organization’s Ventura laboratory, CMB scientists work with student ‘scientists-in-training’ to dive into such topics as genetic variation in marine populations, bioacoustics, chemical signals in the marine environment, biomaterials, microchemical analysis, phytoplankton biomass and composition, bioluminescence and kelp forest monitoring.
Since our travel schedule would obviously not accommodate entering into a scholastic program, we were able to satisfy our intellectual curiosity with a visit to the Channel Islands National Park Visitor Center. Contour models of the five northern Channel Islands served to wet our appetite to get back on the water.
Inside the center which serves as headquarters for the Channel Islands National Park and Marine Sanctuary, you can see a full-sized display of an elephant seal, an island fox and a replica of a pygmy mammoth skeleton found on Santa Rosa Island in 1992. Rangers and volunteers are eager to share information about the living tide pool which is home to sea urchins, sea stars, lobsters and a swell shark. There you can also get information about boat tours, plane flights and camping sites. (Ah, it’s great to have an RV on the water at these times.)
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