Inspiration point
As the sun hit my back mercilessly, as I pulled dead ice plant from the ground, as i longed for a air conditioned classroom with WiFi, I asked myself what the hell am i doing when it came to me at during the end of the trip, on that hot September day, during a hot day on anacapa island is when I realized exactly what I wanted to do as a career, become an Environmental Scientist. I had started that day happy because I had gotten out of a school day by participating in a field trip lead by my AP Environmental Science teacher Mr. K F. It was the first time that he had conducted the field trip in that school year so we had no idea into what we were getting ourselves into. It was a nice overcast morning we were supposed to meet by a harbor at island bay packer where we were supposed to catch a ride from there to anacapa, find the place was a chore since it was kinda hidden but I found it. When i arrived there i was expecting to see people from school but i was a bit surprised to see no one there. So i waited for what seemed like an eternity inside i had fears that i was a fool and had mistaken the day of the excursion. Thankfully those fears were displaced when i saw one of my friends S whom i had signed up with along with a couple friends. So eventually everyone that had signed up had arrived. One of the last to arrive was our teacher Mr.F i asked him when he arrived why he had told us to arrive so early with what we responded “ I knew some crackbabys were going to be late so i gave an earlier time this year.”which when we thought about it was really smart of him. After we took care of the necessary steps required by the school to participate on a field trip to an island that had a deadly virus created by rats or as Mr.F told us that day “pinche ratas.” we boarded the Vanguard it was a relatively small boat compared to the boats docked next to it, so seating was limited due to the small size and the unusual amount of people going to the island that day so naturally my group of buddies went to the top of the boat where it had the best vantage point to see all around, the trip from the docks wasn’t all that bad or boring (there was a couple of interesting boat names that made it worthwhile) now the trip to the island was definitely memorable, as soon as we cleared the beach and got a couple of knots from the mainland we got some heavy fog it was so thick i couldn’t see more than 2 to 3 meters from the boat I thought it was a bad omen to have eerie fog but as soon as it came it went like wise the cloud cover disappeared as well. Which was good and bad it meant the boat could go faster but the sun was harsh that day. From when the clouds cleared and our arrival to the island we had a couple of visitors from under the sea first we had an entire herd of dolphins swimming at the side of the boat which were dark gray at the top with grey flowing at their sides and identified as blue dolphins by the boats lookout, then we saw what we had assumed to be a shark chasing a seal. When we finally arrived close enough to the island to see it in detail I noticed three things first there was a large lighthouse rising from the left part of the island, secondly where was the vegetation? Lastly where was the beach? The island looked brown from far away and from the side we came from we couldn’t see the beach. When we finally docked I was surprised when I learned that Anacapa is an island with nothing but cliffs surrounding it and the only way to get to the top was to go up a shitton of stairs. So we climbed and at the top we saw why the it looked brown instead of green. All of the plants were dry not a single green thing save one or two cactus’s there was also bird poop everywhere followed by the strangest smell which was only smell-able at the top. We walked to the park station at the top where we were greeted by a couple of park rangers who gave us some background on the island history and the people who lived there and its role in World War Two they also told us exactly what we would be doing, they were going to make us dig up an invasive species that was killing the native species on the island we were also advised to stay away from the cliff side. So as soon as we got an explanation on what we were supposed to do we went and got gloves to protect our hands from damage and began to pull lce grass from the ground. After a while we noticed that we had accumulated a large amount of ice grass and we had nowhere to put the waste thankfully the brought us some bags to place them in so we began to place them in large bags that would be disposed of later by the national park so we worked and worked until we finally got a lunch break (it was during this break when i tasted the best sandwiches that i have tasted presumably because i was hungry from working) it was during this break of digging the invasive plant out of the ground when i began to think about environmental science as a whole. I enjoyed doing that kind of work i knew that even a small amount of work to restore a place all adds up eventually and that every small act counts, so it began to grow on me. Eventually we had finished for the day so we went on a hike to explore the island while we waited for the boat,before the hike we went to see the little museum they had of the place which contained the old glass of the lighthouse which was twice as tall as me with intricate patterns of glass after seeing it in detail we went on the hike, it was during this hike that we took, when i finally realized that i wanted to follow a career in Environmental science i was in awe of the landscape and how beautiful it all look but more specifically it was when we arrived to inspiration point on the island, all it took was one look out onto the landscape to convince me i knew right then and there i wanted to help conserve nature and all the beautiful things found in nature, from Inspiration point you could see the ocean which was a strong dark blue except for the water close to the island which was cyan and under that section you could see the seaweed rising from the depths, the islands that were close also created an interesting panorama . The boat ride back took us around Anacapa across from the arch and to see the sea lions sunbathing the trip across the stretch was less eventful everyone was hella tired from the work we had done on the island i fell asleep during the ride so i don’t know if anything exciting happened. Before that day i wasn’t sure exactly what i wanted to do with my life, i was more interested in math than environmental science but I went home that day with the desire to help conserve natures beauty and knowing exactly what i wanted to do for my future.
AC
