876 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[JUNE 2, 
1906. 

The Log of a Sea Angler. 

The Santa Barbara Islands. 
BY CHARLES F, HOLDER. 
WE hauled out to-day and under the strong 
west wind sailed for Anacopa, about 100 miles 
north, the: lowest of the islands of the Santa Bar- 
bara group, and in the morning San Buenaven- 
tura was under our starboard bow, and to the left 
Anacopa lying low on the horizon. 
_The name Anacopa means ever changing, and 
is true to life, as every time I looked up there 
was a different island, new peaks or hills had 
come into view. A few hours later we passed the 
southern point and found it to be a long, very 
narrow ledge of rock rising in some places 400 
or 500 feet, possibly, and in others almost broken 
in two or beaten by the waves. On the south end 
the mesa sloped down at an angle of 45 degrees; 
the sea had made a breach through it, leaving one 
portion out in deep water in which was an arch 
I estimated at forty feet in height, beautifully 
proportioned, a Gothic arch through which the 
sea was rolling. The surface of this discon- 
nected section had just the angle of the main land 
portion, and the entire series was a graphic ex- 
ample of an island going to pieces. 
The shore mesa was occupied by a colony of 
gray pelicans, and when we fired the yacht’s can- 
non they arose in hundreds and went circling into 
the air higher than I have ever seen a pelican 
go before. 
Great schools of bonito were all about us; the 
water was a deep and splendid blue, and, taking 
in sail, we sent the yacht by power along the 
rocky shore, that was everywhere perforated with 
caves of all sizes, many were small, and the sea 
was constantly rushing in and forcing out the 
air with a loud and menacing roar. ‘They were 
so interesting that we lowered the boat and rowed 
up to one and were almost blown out of the water 
by the fierce blast that came out. A more un- 
canny coast iine than that of Anacopa it would 
be difficult to imagine. 
We found a little lee near the north end, 
anchored and went ashore, landing on a small 
beach. The rocks were arched here and the isl- 
and was a dismal place; yet, here was a Robin- 
son Crusoe-like herder. There was not a drop 
of water on the island, yet there was a herd of 
sheep here. 
“What do they drink,” I asked. 
“Why, they get soaked in the fog every night 
and are just like sponges, and they lap the dew 
from their fleece and get all they need.” 
I could easily understand this, as at night ‘a 
fog rolled in black and like rain in its density. 
Cabrillo, the old navigator, cruised about these 
islands in 1545 and has left an account of ‘the 
natives and lists of the names of towns and cities 
that covered the islands and the adjacent main 
land all along shore, but to-day there is not an 
Indian to be found that has even a legend tell- 
ing of the lost races of this land of romance. 
We got away in the morning, crossed a nar- 
row channel with schools of bonitos and other 
fishes always in sight and ran along the shore 
of Santa Cruz Island, one of the most attractive 
of the group and about as large as Santa Cata- 
lina. The anchorage was midway up the island 
but we kept along shore to see the caves, and I 
counted a score or more of kitchen-middens or 
town sites; in fact, they were strewn along the 
entire coast of Santa Cruz, telling of a large and 
vigorous population in the long ago. 
Everywhere the coast was perforated with 
caves and blow holes, and all along shore fringes 
or beards of kelp that rolled over and over like 
a mass of tawny olive-hued sea snakes. As at 
Santa Catalina, the island seemed shot up out of 
the sea, so that when fifty feet from the rocks the 
yacht rode in deep blue water of the same splen- 
did tint. 
There: was a fascination about it, and leaning 
over from the skiff I peered down into the fault- 
less depths vainly looking for the “dark unfath- 
omed caves that ocean bears.” 
The water was filled with animal life. Myriads 
of minute and delicate forms floated in the fitful 
currents; long, slender, stalk-like objects seem- 
ingly of glass, glowing gems in red, blue, scar- 
let and yellow, graceful tracery, suggesting lace 
of nature’s own designing—minute flashes due to 
periclinium that here and there changed the 
blue to red. I counted myriads of jellies—that 
are supposed not to be known on American 
shores—pyrasoma, physophora, paper nautilus 
and many more; and as I looked the scene 
changed and an argus-eyed throng passed—a 
school of California barracudas. 
Rods were always at hand and a sardine bait 
was soon dashing through the blue water and— 
z-e-e-e-e-e-e, The game was on, and a long, slen- 
der pike- like fish “dashed to the surface, shook 
its pointed jaw in air and plunged downward, 
surging around the boat, making for a few mo- 
ments a very clever fight. But I would reluct- 
antly class this barracuda with the pickerel, a 
sad contrast to the splendid Bahamian variety 
that is a “solitary” and does not school. 
changed rods and soon had a strike on a “ma- 
chine” that weighed about ten outices. This was 
better, and I was ten minutes landing the fish. 
This game has virtues, it is one of the best of 
California food fishes and has an economic value 
far exceeding that of the yellowtail or tuna. 
Casting again I had a strike of the hurricane 
variety and 150 feet of my No. 9 line was off and 
away before I recovered. No scorned _barra- 
cuda this; up it came to the surface, darting 
around the boat like a meteor—sounding, smash- 
ing at the line with lateral blows, seeming from 
its head, and giving the most remarkable series 
of efforts to escape and demoralize the angler that 
I had experienced in many a year; and it was all 
or nearly all on the surface. The minutes slipped 
away until twenty had passed and my game was 
100 feet away and a friend in the yacht was 
shouting, “Go in and win,’ but so clever was 
this fish that the slightest mistake would have 
meant escape, so I took my time, and my boat- 
man had the time of his life keeping the stern 
of the boat to that fish. 
In time I gained the mastery and soon it came 
into view—a splendid silvery, blue-backed crea- 
ture with a flash of yellow; then it crossed the 
quarter and was cleverly gaffed and lifted aboard, 
as game a 20-pound fish as anyone could wish. 
It was a large bonito. There are two bonitos 
here, one is called the skip jack, is small, plump 
and a hummingbird of color; then another also 
called bonito, longer and slimmer but robust, with 
a powerful head, and this was my game, common 
at Santa Catalina in early spring and summer 
and a game fish in every sense. I took several, 
as did others, replenishing the larder. 
Getting under way we ran along shore in 
smooth water, coming to the landing and anchor- 
ing. 
Santa Cruz is much like the islands to the 
south, but this 100 miles makes a noticeable differ- 
ence. Santa Cruz is better wooded, having a 
dense growth of pines in some parts, due to the 
drenching fogs which come drifting in there. 
Like Santa Catalina, it was mountainous, deep 
ravines coming down to the sea, but few landing 
places, no harbors’ proper, and a third less pro- 
tected shore and heavier winds. 
The island was private property and landing 
not permitted, but we had letters and the pro- 
prietor, Mr. Claire, a vineyardist of the north, gave 
us graceful and hearty welcome. If I were a 
novelist I should take Santa Cruz as the color 
scheme for my tale, as a more fascinating, mys- 
terious place I have never seen. 
From the sea it has a forbidding appearance, 
and almost anywhere a ship of the largest size 
could run in and smash her bowsprit or cutwater 
on the rocky base of the island ranges before 
she ran aground, and-there she would sink in 
deep water. 
The passerby would never suspect that man 
lived here. You remember one of the Arabian 
Nights’ tales where Sinbad is carried into a val- 
ley surrounded by mountains and is taken out 
by gigantic birds. Santa Cruz reminded me of 
this as Mr. Claire took us in his carriage and car- 
ried us up the cafion to dine at the manor house. 
We took the bed of the stream and passed up 
a deep cafion through an arcade of venerable 
oaks which grew on the sides and swayed in the 
gentle breeze. How many times we crossed the 

stream, how long we followed its bed I have for- 
gotten, but we seemed to be a part of one of the 
old English plays of the Elizabethan period, and 
I was constantly looking for some Rosalind or a 
mark on the trees, and should not have been as- 
tonished at any moment to have seen Caliban or 
Robin Hood and his men. We were an hour 
climbing up this road of delights, navigating this 
river of oaks, then, like Sinbad, came suddenly 
into a valley of delights that burst upon us as 
though the transformation had been prearranged. 
This part of the island, at least, was hollow—a 
great pseudo crater in appearance surrounded by 
mountains which shut off the sea, so that we 
might have been in the heart of the Sierras, so 
far as appearances went. 
But presto and we were in a typical Swiss- 
Italian vineyard. There was the manor house 
with its graceful iron work that you knew in 
New Orleans or France, and under the broad 
veranda hung a big French horn, the kind you 
wind about the body like a plethoric anaconda. 
Nearby was a little chapel with a sun dial worth 
a king’s ransom to an art’ lover. .Hard by was 
the big roomy quarters of the men and the sep- 
arate dining room, and all about Italian pines and 
trees, poplars of Normandy and groups of splen- 
did Australian eucalyptus whose topmost branches 
must have looked down on the ocean a thousand 
feet below. 
Spreading away were vineyards laden with 
grapes of all kinds good for wine-making, masses 
of splendid color gleaming beneath the resilient 
surface of leaves and vine. 
Santa Cruz was a vineyard and had a large . 
winery carried on by wine-makers from Italy, 
Switzerland and France, and as we sat beneath 
an Italian pine and listened to the soft wind 
rustling, jangling the pine needles, it was im- 
possible to realize that we were twenty miles out 
at sea and not in Piedmont or somewhere on the 
Riviera. 
Then the dinner, Perhaps you know how a 
man feels after he has been at sea for several 
weeks, and is ashore again. What peculiar things 
he will do and. how he craves shore food. [| re- 
member long ago when a midshipman, we made 
New York after a three weeks’ run, and every 
man or boy had funds amply sufficient to last 
him all summer. But what did we do? Nothing 
else than march up to Delmonico’s, then, as I 
remember, on Fifth avenue and Fourteenth street, 
and gave ourselves and friends a banquet that 
ruined and broke every lad among us. There 
was “frenzied finance’ in those days, and the 
worst of it 1s, perhaps, that I think we were quite 
right to this day, though the “cits” we laid away 
under the table probably do not see it in the samé 
bright light. 
But our dinner at Santa Cruz was not of this 
character, and I merely mention it, as our host 
said as we drank his health in the splendid wines 
made on the island, that everything on the board 
but.the champagne was raised in Santa Cruz, and 
even the champagne came from his vineyard up 
near San Francisco. In fact, Santa Cruz was a 
little principality and its soft, balmy winds, its 
air like velvet, its arcades of oaks and pines, its 
regaty buildings and acres of smiling grapes 
rmed an atmosphere that hung about us for 
many a day like some subtle perfume. 
I climbed the mountain rim of this charming 
island and looked out over and upon the blue 
ocean, saw the big fog banks lying off shore like 
huge krakens, heard the roar of the sea and wild 
cries from the rookeries of sea lions, and felt 
the full charm of island life. Surely, this love 
for the sea is in the blood of those who go down 
to it in ships or live along the indentures of its 
rocky shores. Almost the first sound I heard 
was the thunder of the sea on the Nahant rocks 
and adjacent shores; then I lived five or six years 
on a key, far out on the Florida reef, an island 
but half a mile around, beaten by the constant 
and eternal sea; and as I looked out on the ocean 
from the mountain top of Santa Cruz, as I often 
had from Santa Catalina, I realized that for me, 
at least, there was a strong fascination in the 
isolation of island life; but this is not a con- 
fessional. The fog was coming in, and as I sat 
overlooking the sea I saw the sublime spectacle of 
my life. The fog came on black and menacing, 
