I will long remember
the day the twin-engine commercial contract airplane delivered me to the
mysterious island on the latest of my US Navy air
Traffic Control (ATC) assignments.
The roiling water below was blue-green as
the aircraft dipped ever-closer towards the 10,000 foot long runway.
The airport
sat just inland of the little fish shaped island’s east end.
On final approach as the DC-8 propellar driven passenger aircraft dipped smoothly toward the runway, I could see white washed waves
of water meeting below. It looked as though the waves were clapping into each other at the point of a sand spit that
narrowed into the Pacific Ocean.
My heart was pounding with excitement! While
others stationed there would see San Nicolas Island (SNI) as boring, tedious, humdrum,
and isolated, this would be the most intriguing and inspiring place I had ever
seen! Little did I suspect the
experience would have me reaching all the way back to treasured memories from my
youth for comparison and reference.
First View
As we turned onto the final approach for landing my eyes peering through the wind scratched window, I could see dolphins in the deep blue water sliding through the waves that rushed toward the rocky and sandy shore. I’d been advised space on the island and the living quarters there would be limited and small, “Don’t bring a bunch of ‘stuff’ ” the assignment briefer told us.
My ‘stuff’ went into a
storage unit to await the end of my 18 month obligation and I’d head to
my next duty station. Then again, I’d only taken this assignment with the
understanding that I’d then be given a post at McMurdo Sound and the Navy’s
Operation Deep Freeze on Antarctica. Ever since I’d fallen under the spell of
photography years ago, I’d dreamed of one day capturing images of the Emperor,
King and Adele Penguins with camera and lens – so who knew when I’d see my
‘stuff’ again! I considered this 18 month tour of duty just a stepping stone enroute to the photo-opportunities I might find in an Antarctic adventure and I had a feeling I might even want to extend my duty there for the photo opportunities.
The official ‘check-in’ to
the SNI Outlying Landing Field (SNI-OLF) was the beginning of the orientation
process and also served to ensure that everyone new-to-the-island understood the
rules and regulations of life there. Also part of the orientation was the
safety briefing that specifically made note of the dangers associated with life on SNI. Jagged
rocky cliffs, high tides and a lack of beaches dictated strict rules against
swimming, greatly limited fishing activities and all but shut down ideas of ocean-water based recreation.
Anyone leaving the compound after duty hours to tour the island or catch a
sunset, etc. was required to use the barracks log book to sign-out and sign-in
upon returning to the compound. No one was allowed outside the compound after
dark.
At three miles wide and
just nine miles long, some considered San Nicolas Island a very restrictive, boring environment. The work week for most of the small population of Naval personnel and a few dozen civilian contractors, engineers,
marine animal behaviorists and environmentalists was Monday through Friday at noon.
By afternoon on Fridays the iisland and living compound seemed quite deserted as the majority of the work force flew home to
the mainland at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pt. Mugu at, Santa Barbara to join their spouses and/or
families, or simply to spend the weekend at what they called ‘getting back to
civilization’.
Throughout my 18 month
tour, I came to love Fridays simply for the quiet and solitude brought by the exodus. I chose to remain on
the island, along with the designated skeleton support crew, most of whom never
left the barracks or compound area. Throughout the weekend I was free to roam
and explore the island almost as if I were there alone. It was a priceless experience!
Danger on the Beach
I had arrived on the
island on a Monday. It was just after dawn on Thursday morning, my first
official duty day in the SNI Control Tower along with four other ATC crew
members, that we received an alert: Search and Rescue would launch from the
airport to search for two other newly arrived station members. They had signed
out to tour the island the previous afternoon but had not signed back in. They
had not returned to their barracks that evening, and were believed to have gone
fishing in one of the coves on the north side of SNI. One of the two men had
arrived on the same flight that brought me to the island. The other had arrived
only a week prior.
They were soon spotted by
the crew of the Bell helicopter. One was still alive clinging to the body of
the younger man and fighting to remain clear of the rough tidewater that had
trapped them in the cove the night before. Both avid freshwater fishermen, they
had been eager to try their hand at the big fish they believed might be available before
high tide. Both were inexperienced with Pacific surf fishing or with SNI’s rising tide. They had apparently not paid enough attention to the information
put out during the safety briefing about the island coves which can be inconspicuously
closed off by rising tides.
Suffering from exposure
and exhaustion, the survivor was airlifted to the hospital at NAS Pt. Mugu. We
learned from the report eventually filed that the anglers had been having a
great time catching large fish and the high tide water had trapped them on a
tiny beach area in the surrounding cliffs of the rocky cove before they knew
what was happening. There was no way for them to climb out, and the rough waves
were too high and too forceful for the men to swim around the rocks to safety.
Their only chance for survival was to try to hang on to one another and to one
large jutting boulder until the tide receded. This was early January, when even
Southern California nights can be miserably cold. They had suffered the cold and wet experience and prayed
throughout the night. At some point a huge wave came crashing in, ripping them
from the boulder on which they’d been clinging. The younger man had already
drowned and been tossed deeper into the recess of the cove by the time the
other managed to get to his body. As waves continued to pound into the cove the
lone exhausted survivor was determined to not let the young man’s body be swept
out to sea. In the report he attributed his own survival to that determination
that they should both be returned to their families.
The survivor of the fatal
fishing trip did not return to SNI. It was said that he was able to return to
his family and to a different duty station, but that event left us all with a
truer understanding of why the safety edicts were so forcefully stressed.
Throughout my 18 months of exploring the island those two sailors were often on
my mind as a reminder to keep safety first.
Using maps and aerial
photographs available I familiarized myself with the landscape of the 3x9 mile
island. A small but adequate library housed a number of books and periodicals
offering photographs and information about the lay of the land, its seashore
birds and animals and limited information about the mission of the military.
Also of importance was learning about military operations area to be avoided.
Different areas of the island had been used
and some areas were still being used as missile testing sites, etc. Some
of those areas could contain unexploded ordinance, or even remote controlled live fire exercises.
Finally - Time for Exploration
My real fascination with
the San Nicolas Island came several weekends into my tour of duty when I
finally was able to secure the use of a jeep to actually start touring the island.
Sunrise couldn’t happen fast enough on Saturday mornings. My photo backpack sat
prepared with my Nikon manual exposure camera, lots of 35mm slide and negative
film, water and snacks to hold me over till near sundown. My weekly log entries of departing the compound
for specific areas on SNI became familiar entries even though the barracks
staff became accustomed to my weekend treks.
Having focused on the history as well as folklore and previous archaeological reseach done on the island I fell in love with the environment and enjoyed sharing the information with those who might be interested but preferred to remain in the compound. Occasionally, I was asked to
provide tours for newcomers and visiting dignitaries.
The first time I toured
the west end of the island alone was an eye opening experience. Sitting on a
sandy, high bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, California sea lions barking
far below me at the water’s edge, I discovered that I had been introduced to this
little fish shaped island while I was still in junior high school. A sign, just
off to my right and down towards the small cove displayed the words: CORAL
COVE.
It had been years since I’d read about Karana
and Rontu in Scott O’Dell’s Young Adult book - Island of the Blue Dolphins. This had been one of my most favored
of childhood books. In an instant I realized
that I was sitting on the very island from whose history the story of Karana
had been taken.
Racing back to
the compound and to the library, I found more publications that confirmed my
suspicion. Scott O’Dell’s book was there, as well as a number of publications
from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History that presented fascinating
details of the island’s history and of the people who, down through the
centuries, had inhabited or had visited the island.
In O’Dell’s
telling of the tale: a young Chumash Indian girl named Karana had been left
alone on the small island for 18 years. Her people called the island Ghalas-at.
Her people had sailed away from the island that, for generations, they’d called
their home. Karana was left behind while
trying to save her younger brother, as told by Odell’s tale. Karana’s people
had always feared the wild dogs on the island. It was this fear that caused
Karana’s concern for her brother and caused her to dive from the boat as it
sailed eastward into an approaching storm with the rest of her people. In her
attempt to save her brother she would be alone on the island for eighteen
years.
Upon my initial arrival, the excitement of this new adventure had tingled inside of me as I stepped off the commuter flight. The
small airport terminal was the same as others I’d seen around the country, but
in making a turn around the island before we landed I’d already spotted
rocky-beaches, coves, and sand-dunes that I was eager to explore.
There wasn’t much
air traffic to control, the commuter flight was the only regular air traffic to
come near the island with an occasional aircraft fly-over on a training mission.
With lots of time to spare, I eagerly took on the duty of island photographer
and public relations officer.
Most of my time
was spent exploring the beaches that teemed with boulder sized great-gray
elephant seals, sea lions, seagulls, cormorants, California brown Pelicans and
whales ‘breaching’ off the west end!
I spent hours
watching massive waves of blue-green water, from strong currents that surround
San Nicolas Island, being reduced to foamy bubbles as they settled into the
sand in a continual game of
“kiss-the-beach.”
I sat one morning
on a smooth gray rock in Coral Cove as I was basking in my good fortune to be on
this beautiful Pacific island. While watching elephant seal cows nursing their
new born calves I looked off across the deep water of the ocean and as if some
spirit from the depths of the water leaped into my soul, the sunlight sparkled
in the water and was reflected in my eye!
I realized in that instant that I was sitting in the Coral Cove!
I was sitting on the same rocks where Karana
might have sat to watch whales, dolphins, or otters playing in kelp beds! My
mind raced as I tried to think back to reading the story so many years ago!
Locating Scott
O’Dell’s book on a trip to the mainland at week’s end, I read it again and
devoured every word. I learned through extensive research that a young woman
had been left alone on the island just as O’Dell’s story said. Santa Barbara
missionaries later named her Juana Maria.
Over the course
of the eighteen months that I was stationed on SNI I tried to visit every
location that was mentioned in the story.
I went often to
Coral Cove and to the cave where Karana and Rontu might have hidden when the seal hunters
returned. I studied the slope of the headlands covered with yellow Coreopsis
flowers as bright as the sun. I wondered how many times Karana might have sat here at Vizcaino Point
while the sun set like a red-hot platter in the evening sky.
The long
sand-spit of Jehemy Beach on the
east-end was one of my favorite spots. The Chumash who were Karana’s people
must have used this location for gathering
fish or shellfish washed onto the beach in the strong current. Here, the current from the north
side and the current from the south side
of the island slap each other into great heights at the end of a long ‘breach’
of sand. The "sand-spit" is created as both currents race toward the mainland of
California.
I discovered Chumash Indian ‘kitchen middens
or refuse-mounds, filled with nearly 100 years or more of debris from broken abalone shells, broken
abalone shell-bowls, beads and animal bones left behind from the time the
Chumash lived on the island. Artifacts were easily seen throughout these
middens. Small bits of abalone shell made into beads for jewelry, parts of fish
hooks also carved from abalone shell glistened their iridescence in the
sunlight. An awl, probably made of seal bone, lay wedged into the base of an
abalone shell. Sharpened on one end, it must have been used for puncturing.
Karana or another of her people might have used it to sew a cloth of seal skin
or maybe for weaving a basket of reeds.
Holding the
ancient tool in my own hand gave me an eerie feeling! Who of Karana’s people
had held this last? Might Karana herself had used the tool?
Walking through
the middens, I kept hoping to spot remnants of a black stone necklace. Scott
O’Dell’s story tells of an Aleut woman, who accompanied the seal hunters. She
had given Karana such a necklace.
Often, on San
Nicolas Island, the clouds were gray and the wind blew fiercely. At these times
I thought of Karana especially, of when she and her people had lived their day
to day life on their fish-shaped island home and of when she existed on the
island alone. As I walked along the beach, the sounds that filled the air from
the seagull rookery, the sounds of the seals and the roaring waves could be
deafening. I tried to feel what Karana might have felt as she heard the same
sounds in the mid-1800’s - loneliness, fear, sorrow, self indulgence or was it
a sense of belonging? It was all here, whether you knew the story or not.
There were no
longer wild dogs on the island, but on several occasions I spotted and
photographed the elusive little island fox - like the one Karana once caught in
a trap, then nursed back to health only to send it back to the wild. I watched
blue dolphins still leap and play as Karana had watched them just beyond the
kelp beds. Except for the two wild dogs that had become her companions, the
blue dolphins were Karana’s only friends. They are animals of good omen
and watching them had helped her to feel
safe on the island without her family. When she was out at sea with the leaking
canoe, it was a pod of blue dolphins that swam along with her and helped her
feel ‘not-alone’ as she fought the sea to return to the island.
Sometimes
standing alone at the headlands and looking into an orange-jeweled sunset, it
was hard to keep the fiction of O’Dell’s story separated from the facts. Though
I enjoyed the fictional account, I was even more intrigued with the historical
information on the true account of the island’s Chumash Indian population and
the young woman who was left on the island when her people were evacuated by
Santa Barbara Missionaries in 1835.
The evacuation
was an attempt to save what was left of the island’s Chumash inhabitants before
California sheep ranchers took possession of the island, to increase their
grazing opportunities. The population of Indians had already dwindled to about
30-35 people over the years through contact with gun runners who visited the
island, pirates, Russian and Alaskan seal hunters.
She was real.
“Karana” was the name O’Dell had given her for his novel’s character,
missionaries who later rescued the real ‘lost woman of the island,’ gave her
the name ‘Juana Maria.’ Historical accounts note that, after discovering that
her own small child was not on board, she jumped off the ship which was relocating
her people to the mission to live. An ocean storm was brewing fast during the
evacuation and the ship could not turn back for her. It was assumed that she
was lost to the depths of the sea.
Sheep were
brought to the island to graze, but the woman is said to have eluded those who
came periodically to check on the livestock through all those years.
She survived
alone on the island for 18 years. Juana Maria actually outlived her people who
had been ‘rescued’. They were all dead of dysentery within 30 days after reaching
Mission Santa Barbara because those who rescued them did not understand the importance
of the traditional ‘wild-foods’ diet of the island natives. They were fed the same diet a the Santa Barbara folks, mutton, tomatoes, potatoes, etc, All foodstuffs foreign to the diet of the San Nicloas Island people.
I walked the rocky beach of Coral Cove often at dawn and often well into the gray light of dusk. Had she
walked here? Her footsteps had long ago been erased by strong winds and high
tides but I felt her spirit in the island breeze. At these times, I could sense
the loneliness that Juana Maria might have experienced after all the people,
her family, had been taken away; her only child perished. In the non-fiction account it had been her own child see thougt to rescue after jumping overboard of the boat.
Blue-green water
charged into the rocks of the island when the tide came rushing in and I looked
out across the sea at white clouds on the horizon, at least secure that no
red-sails of the Russian seal hunters would come to disturb the island’s
teeming sea animal population.
The true story is
even sadder than the tale of Karana.
After 18 years
alone on the island, Juana Maria was finally discovered and taken away to Santa
Barbara. Like her people, within 30 days, she too had died of dysentery. The
diet of the Santa Barbara community was too different, too rich, for the
Chumash, who were accustomed to a diet of sea lion, whale, cormorant, tide-pool
delicacies and native seeds and roots.
Like the dolphins that Karana and I watched
dancing along the kelp beds, her spirit lives on in the currents that caress
the rocky shores of the island of San Nicolas. After 18 months
of searching for Karana’s footsteps in the shifting sand, I too had to leave
the little fish-shaped island headed for Santa Barbara. I was on to other adventures.
My 18 month
experience on San Nicolas Island, and the strength and perseverance that I'd learned
from Karana while exploring the Island of the Blue Dolphins, (AKA San Nicolas Island) is a jewel that I will
always treasure.
