Anacapa Island Landing Cove

The Anacapa Island Landing Cove is my favorite place to dive and is the genesis of my nom de plume “Covediver”—a moniker that I claimed in 1998 after doing dozens of dives in the cove as a volunteer with the National Park Service Underwater Interpretation Program.  Anacapa Island, one of five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park off the California coast, means “mirage” or “ever changing” in the native Chumash language.  The island seems to change shape from time-to-time, an optical illusion spawned by fog and atmospheric conditions.  Essentially the remains of an ancient volcano, the island rises vertically from the sea floor.  The landing cove is how the island is accessed via the dock and boathouse tucked into one side of the cove and a couple of hundred steps that lead to the summit of the island. 

When I volunteered at CINP in the late 1990s, every Tuesday and Thursday, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, one of three NPS boats, most often Sea Ranger and later Ocean Ranger, would leave the CINP Headquarters and Visitors Center in Ventura Harbor for a quick trip to Anacapa Island. Three divers would be among the passengers—an underwater naturalist/interpreter, a camera operator, and a safety diver/line tender/critter wrangler—which was my role and oh how I loved it. 

Usually, we made two dives in support of the program.  The first dive, a reconnaissance dive checked out conditions and located critters featured on the show.  The second dive, the underwater interpretation program, took place in the afternoon. The naturalist would don a full face dive mask wired for voice communication via short cable to the underwater video camera.  The underwater camera had a 100-foot armored umbilical which connected on the dock to three video monitors and speakers.  The visitors on the island would watch the program on a bank of three video monitors in the wall of the boat house.  The show was also broadcast to the CINP Visitor’s Center on the mainland.  The naturalist and underwater video camera operator worked in unison to show the visitors the wonder of the kelp forest. 

My job consisted of helping the two divers into the water, paying out the cable, donning my scuba unit and jumping into the water to monitor the dive team, locating critters (like lobster, swell shark, or sheep crab) for the show, retrieving the cable as the team made their way back towards the dock, exiting the water by climbing up one of two ladders from the water to the dock, pulling in the cable and retrieving the camera and diver.  We then had about 30 minutes to stow all the gear before departing the island.  The elapsed time from suit up to pick up was typically a little over an hour.  Gee, I loved that job. It was a lot of work, but the audience was always appreciative.

Rarely, I would have an adverse encounter with one of the critters.  I recall one instance when I holding a sheep crab and it reached with one of its long arms and pinched my finger with its claw.  On another occasion, I spied a lobster and quickly reaching into the whole to grab it failed to notice the moray eel behind it.  In another instance, a formation three of bat rays swam into the cove.  Unable to get the naturalist’s or camera operator’s attention, despite flapping my arms (the underwater signal for “bat ray”), I grabbed the camera operator by the shoulders and turned him toward the rays.  He got the shot as the trio of rays turned and swam out of the cove and the visitors learned about their natural history.  One of the magical moments in the enchanted cove.