California-Oregon NPs-Channel Islands-042126
I reached Ventura before sunrise and located the visitor center for the Channel Islands National Park. Since the center wouldn’t open for several hours, I drove to the dock where Island Packers, the official boat transport to the islands, was located. I had scheduled a tour with them to see the islands–I thought. Somehow, the tour I had in mind turned into one that dropped campers/hikers at two points on one of the park’s five islands, Santa Cruz, and would then pick up others from the same two piers before returning to Ventura. My plan to spend the morning on the boat tour, followed by a drive to Irvine–where a colleague was holding an opera performance ticket for me–had to be adjusted because the boat would not return until after 5 p.m., which left insufficient time to make the drive to Irvine before the performance began. As sometimes happens with…