Ahoy, landlubbers!

Opportunities are like bugs: you’ve got to snatch them before they escape! I’ve fallen behind with visiting the Channel Islands this year, but today I got out my weekend net to catch the Island Explorer to Santa Cruz, the Isle of Scorpions!

This is the largest of the Channel Islands, so big that it had to be split between the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy. Over 1,200 Chumash used to live here, calling the island Limuw or “in the sea,” a name that lasted as long as it took for the Spanish to arrive. Nowadays, the name that dominates the island is “Scorpion” (Scorpion Anchorage, Scorpion Rock, Scorpion Cove, etc.), but no one, not even the rangers, knows why. That’s when the sun flashed into my eyes off a resplendent carapace, and I found myself face-to-face with an honest-to-goodness scorpion!

The scorpion didn’t say much, but gesticulated wildly with his, or her, platinum-colored pincers, making all sorts of complex clicking noises before hurrying away. I figured that meant I should follow, and so I did, up the beach to the new visitor center at Scorpion Ranch, which, surprisingly, was a private residence, closed for tours! The scorpion directed my attention to the many information signs recounting the island’s history of sheep ranching. That idea came from Dr. James Shaw, who, in 1855, realized there were no sheep predators on the island and consequently introduced many invasive species of grass and a great deal of overgrazing! Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea!

I had a lot of trouble communicating with the scorpion, but I did finally express that I wanted to climb the Montañon Ridge via—you guessed it—Scorpion Canyon! Still clicking and gesticulating wildly, he/she took off at a rapid pace that I struggled to match! Up, up, up, we went, transitioning from the low, rolling grasslands to the rocky slopes where bloomed the high-dwelling endemics (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss’s garden)! There were many flowers and unusual shapes that made me marvel, yet the scorpion, familiar with these things and unfazed by the hot sun, kept scuttling while I struggled to keep up.

At last, we took a much-needed breather, perched high above the June-gloomy clouds in the branches of a dead oak. How spectacular! The island stretched for miles with rock formations and striations that I’d never expected to see on an island, all littered with truly surreal plants, especially the red-tinged Trask’s live-forever (Dudleya traskiae)! While I marveled at the splendor that surrounded me, I felt the tree tremble, and sure enough, the scorpion had dropped to the ground and beelined (scorpion-lined?) for the summit!

After a steep climb, I arrived, panting, at the summit marker to find the scorpion excitedly gibbering and pointing. There was no need to point; the gorgeous panoramas on all sides were unavoidable! I sat down to eat some trail mix, which the scorpion declined, and realized how lovely it was just to sit, to breathe the fresh air, and to hear nothing but wind. I had considered seeing more on this island, but sometimes I forget that I chose this mission to the national parks and monuments for their beauty. It’s too easy to overlook beauty in the thick of a hurry. Well, that, and many of the caves were closed due to hantavirus concerns, but that’s another story.

In any case, those views of the cold Pacific water had started to make it mighty appealing, so I turned to invite the scorpion to return to the beach with me, only he/she had vanished. There were a number of large rocks nearby, but I sure didn’t want to go sticking my face under them all. Scorpions can be such capricious creatures. So, I called a farewell to my missing friend and returned to the beach, where I spent the last half hour on the Isle of Scorpions enjoying one more beautiful thing: cold, saltwater waves lapping over my sore feet. Ahhh…

‘Til opportunity knocks again!