Channel Islands National Park

Here is an interesting National Park, available soley by boat off the coast of California. I feel lucky to have been there several times. This scene typifies the types of shoreline of Santa Barbara Island- a little off the beaten track.



This one also one of the Channel Islands, San Clemente Island, which is not part of the National Park but one of the nearby in the chain. It is so remote that our US Navy uses it in live artillery excercises, and boats are not allowed at these times.




I was visiting these wonderful places most recently this fall, in September. As it turned out one of my most favorite pictures of the year was this shot of a giant kelp, taken in aprox. 45 ft of sea water while diving.

Marty the third pic is amazing, looks more like an oil painting than a picture.
Thanks for sharing

Don

Looks like a neat place, did you get out and hike around?

As I go over these photos, I wish I had taken more pictures of the islands. Unfortunatly,(perhaps) my focus was more on the underwater photo opportunities, which required my Canon 20D to be in an underwater housing. We try to minimize opening and closing these housings on a boat in between dives, and they pretty well have to be loaded into the housing the night before or you will be scrambling to get them setup in the morning. They don't work out of the water once set up. So it will require me to be bringing yet more equipment..........

We were on a 45 ft boat, which limits docking/ hitting shore- very few spots are suitable for this- rocky, surf, cliffs mostly. It was a live aboard dive vessel- up at 6:00, diving 4-5 times, then the bunk. No chance to get on the shore these trips, although it would be nice to get out and off the boat occaisionaly.
It was difficult to capture the mood on these shots of the islands, but as close as I could come...

Santa Catalina at dawn, probably the best known of the Channel Islands...





And Santa Barbara, more remote




As we all know, we are best to go shoot with a goal and kit to work toward that end... in this trip, it was the underwater scenes I was after.

These Sea Lions, from Santa Barbara, where a National Preserve is designated for thier preservation (as well as a Bird Refuge, all in the National Park)







Bat Rays, which are a Ray I have only seen here in the Channels..





Juvenile Garibaldi, (the state fish of California)



And Adult Garibaldi, another favorite of mine..



I wound up with 100's of shots on this expedition, but since this is a National Park forum, I will leave it here...

I haven't posted most of these anywhere yet, I have had them for sale, and also as competition entries. They are copyright reserved.

Thank you for looking, and I hope they are enjoyed, and they inspire others to explore the other 7/8's of the planets surface.

Hey Marty,

Thanks for sharing these photograph. I am particularly fond of your underwater photographs, which I think are your strongest of this selection. That Sea Lion shot is really quite cool indeed.

James

Hi Marty.

I like the 2nd shot from the bottom.
Do you have a UV light or is the fish's white luminesence just caused by your flash?

The coloring is it's natural camoflauge to protect it while it is so tiny. It is bought out by a set of bright strobes, no UV involved. Glad you like the shot! Fish is about 5 inches long.