6/4/24 Smugglers to Prisoners.

 

S/V Tazzy sails to Alaska, 2

Our present location:  Prisoners Harbor, Santa Cruz Island

We spent three nice nights at Smugglers Cove on Santa Cruz Island.  It’s a nice, relatively shallow bay with good holding and shelter from all but southeasterly winds.  The place received its name due to the widespread smuggling around the back side of the island by sea otter traders and others, known as contrabandistas during both the Spanish and Mexican years (1769-1848), an era in early California history when custom duties were evaded.

For three days, we did nothing but relax, play cards and other games, and generally do nothing.  After three nights, we felt it was time to start heading in the direction we need to go (north), so we decided to weigh anchor and move about 8 miles to another beautiful place on Santa Cruz Island, Prisoners Harbor.  There were southeasterly conditions which made the anchorage less than ideal, so we decided Prisoners Harbor which shelters from southeasterly conditions would be a good place to chill out for a few more days.

We haven’t been to Prisoners in several years, though we have been here many times.  Sometimes it's a crappy anchorage, but sometimes it is as still as a mill pond.  I have a memory of once waking up and the boat was so still, I literally forgot where I was……until I looked out the bathroom window and realized I was a Prisoners.  Last night did not disappoint.  It was so still and calm that the boat hardly moved.

The trip from Smugglers was very grey and quiet.  Once we rounded cavern point, however, it seemed like the gates opened on aquatic activity.  There were pods of sea lions pretending to be dolphin, running and jumping in synchrony, and huge pods of dolphin scattering huge flocks of birds; pelican, cormorant, and seagull across glassy water loaded with massive schools of bait fish bouncing off the surface, but from under the surface.  Though we saw no whales, we know they are there somewhere.

We took a walk on the island yesterday afternoon.  It was a sunny day after all.  The island is very green from all the rain and there is running water. After walking a while, we sat at a picnic bench and enjoyed some snacks and a bottle of wine.

The name of the harbor commemorates a series of events in 1830 that almost transformed the island into a penal colony. Accounts of these events are sketchy and at times contradictory, but the following is a rough outline of what occurred.  Keep in mind that in February 1830, California was controlled by Mexico.  That February, the U.S. brig Maria Ester, captained by John C. Holmes, dropped anchor off Santa Barbara and asked permission to drop of his cargo, some 80 convicts, he had been transporting to Alta, California as part of plan by the Mexican government to establish a penal colony.

Because of the condition the convicts were in, Holmes was refused permission to drop them off.  For months these convicts had been living in vermin-infested filth, were half starved, and their clothes were tattered. The stalemate lasted for for months until in April, with approval of the California Governor at the time, Holmes was permitted to transport around 30 of these convicts with provisions supplied by the Old Mission in Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz Island.  They did fairly well until a fire destroyed their camp in November.  The prisoners built crude craft with the materials they had at hand and escaped the island.  They had no means of propulsion.  They were later rounded up, flogged for daring to escape their island prison, and eventually released and absorbed into society.  In 1880, use of the island as a prison was proposed again by the US Army while attempting to exile a group of rambunctious Apache Indians, but nothing ever came of it.

Prisoners Harbor was also a focal point of island agriculture – a place where many goods from wine, to sheep to cattle, were delivered for transport on and off the island. Now, Prisoners Harbor serves as a port of entry for visitors arriving by boat.[1]

We plan to stay here another night before heading up a little further before crossing to Coho to stage for rounding Point Conception.

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[1] Much of the information in this piece was derived from an article by Michael Redmon writing for the Santa Barbara Independent.