After our quick Santa Barbara Channel Islands tour past San Miguel, we headed East along the South coast of Santa Rosa. There was a soft glow of moisture in the air that day, so I’d put a polarizing filter on the camera to cut the haze. That let me get this long zoom shot of blooms on the North side of Santa Rosa earlier as we descended from the crossing toward San Miguel.
7779 Santa Rosa Blooms
Now we were enjoying a look at Santa Rosa’s SW tip with Point Conception to the NW in the blue hazy distance.
7850 Santa Rosa W. Tip
Off to our right was a view across Santa Rosa’s rumpled blanket of green to the more mountainous Santa Cruz Island.
7852 NE Across Santa Rosa
But of course closer in we were looking down at pinnipeds hauled out in a small sunny cove and more painterly colors of sand, stone, and island plant life.
7853 Plants & Pinnipeds
The sea caves, shapes and colors of Santa Rosa shores were especially delicious that day, thanks to splashes of wildflowers on some slopes.
7856 Santa Rosa Colors
Glancing back toward the West tip, wisps of Pacific color caressed the South coast washed by waves coming to rest after their thousands of miles at sea.
7861 Water Colors
We wondered what plant was making this color we couldn’t name amid faint blotches of red.
7862 Deep Purple Plant
Already the delights of San Miguel were sliding into the distant memories of these precious minutes that somehow merge into an impression of beauty beyond words. We’re glad to have a few hundred pix to temporarily restore tiny particles of that unfolding panorama we saw, almost proving we actually saw paradise. In the wide and long pix like this one, I can pick out a few of the zoom pix that in reality were much more powerful in living 3D context.
7866 Timeless Memories
Even more magical we still had much more of just this second unique island among the four, stretching out ahead!
7868 S.Rosa to S.Cruz
But this post is already getting long so I’ll share this one last look of Santa Rosa entire, back toward San Miguel.
7905 Santa Rosa Island
A green gemstone sprawled in a placid sea beneath wisps of cloud, Santa Rosa Island enchanted us yet again that day.
John & Anne Wiley 
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