California’s Santa Cruz Island: sea kayaking and…sushi?

by Laurel Miller on

My dinner lay spread out beneath me in every direction, plainly visible in the crystalline waters. The rocky inlets and kelp forests of Central California’s eight Channel Islands are home to what is considered to be some of the finest uni, or sea urchin, in the world. To better see them in their natural habitat, I was sea kayaking off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles offshore of the Santa Barbara Channel.

I’d decided on a day trip with Ventura-based outfitter, Island Packers. Confession: I grew up 30 miles south of the quiet coastal community (which is an hour’s drive from LA), but I’d never before visited the islands. It’s just one of those things on my to-do list that kept getting pushed aside, until a friend invited me to join him on a paddle.

Part of the Channel Islands National Park, Santa Cruz is the state’s largest island and a popular hiking, paddling, and camping destination. Seventy-six-percent of Santa Cruz is owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy, with the remaining 24-percent managed by the National Park Service. Along with nearby Anacapa, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, and San Miguel islands, it’s a starkly beautiful place of desolate hills, wind-stunted Native Island Oaks, white sand beaches, tidepools and fossil beds, and rocky cliffs. Santa Cruz is also a popular whale watching destination, famed for its massive sea caves, which can be explored by kayak.

[Photo credit: Flickr user mikebaird]


The Channel Islands were first inhabited by the Chumash Indians, whose archaeological remains date back over 10,000 years. In the last two hundred years, the islands have variously been used by fur traders, fishermen, and the military (poor San Miguel was a bomb testing site that still has the odd live mine unearthed by the relentless wind). In the late 19th century, cattle, horse, and sheep ranching became island industries.

Today, the islands are essentially deserted except for some research facilities, and a handful of primitive campgrounds. There are no stores so campers must pack in all essentials, including drinking water. Campground reservations and a nominal fee are required on all five islands; Santa Rosa permits seasonal beach camping for experienced paddlers and boaters. Even if you’re just day hiking, be sure to bring layers, as the weather is unpredictable.

The Channel Islands are known as North America’s Galapagos. They’re home to over 2,000 species of bird, plant, animal, and marine life, 145 of which are found nowhere else on earth (including the island fox, and an endemic scrub jay). The waters host a variety of sea urchin species, including Strongylocentrotus franciscanus, the red sea urchin. Another confession: I’m not so much a fan of uni, which I find overpowering, as I am of sustainable marine resource management. I’m also fascinated by seeing any ingredient in its raw state. Combined with my love of sea kayaking, a Channel Islands uni expedition was irresistible.

Highly prized for their flavorful roe (which are actually the egg-producing gonads), red urchins are harvested commercially by divers for the domestic and international market. Purple urchins also proliferate in the Channel Islands, but their smaller size makes them undesirable for commercial use. Appearance-wise, uni resemble jaundiced cat tongues (really), and they have an intense, briny flavor revered by seafood aficionados for its pure, unadulterated ocean essence.

Uni is the Japanese word for sea urchin roe; sushi is the culinary form most familiar to Americans. Another classic way to enjoy uni is smeared on toasted bread, which is how I’ve eaten it on the Chilean island of Chiloe – another spot famed for sea urchin. In Southern Italy, uni, or ricci di mare, is sold as a street food, to be scooped onto bread, or tossed in pasta or risotto, while the French use them in custards or delicate sauces, as well as raw for street food. Uni used to be primarily an export product, sold at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market, but since the 1990’s, the domestic market has been the most profitable. In Santa Barbara, you’ll find local uni, when available, at Arigato, and The Hungry Cat (convieniently, my two favorite local restaurants).

Uni is generally considered a sustainable industry because there are size regulations, permit restrictions, and limits on how many days a week harvest is permitted, depending upon the season. Red urchins range from tideline to depths up to 90 feet, subsisting entirely on bottom-growing kelp; the quality of their roe is entirely dependent upon the quantity and health of the aquatic plants, and it’s in the best interest of divers harvesting uni to be selective. Channel Islands uni are prized because of the high quality of the kelp, which is rich in nutrients due to the convergence of the region’s warm and cold waters. Grade A uni possess fatty, or creamy, bright yellow roe, while Grade B uni are more of a brown or orange color. The lowest grade roe have a grainy texture and brown roe.

Central California‘s coast is the nation’s leading source of uni, and it’s become one of the state’s most important fisheries. Though regulated (and currently only open to commercial harvest), not all sea urchin fisheries are sustainable. Human factors, in addition to climate and water temperatures (which affect the kelp cycle) are reasons you might not always find uni at your local sushi bar. Sea otter migration is another factor, and a source of much industry controversy.

While the Santa Barbara/Channel Islands fishery doesn’t have otters, the animals have, in the last decade, moved farther south-the result of coastal development and pollution, and increasing human populations. They’re a protected species, and a key part of the food chain. By nature, they’re grazers (they also don’t feed at depths below 60 feet), snacking upon sea urchins and crustaceans as they swim. Bits of food fall to the ocean floor as they eat, which in turn provides sustenance for lower-food chain bottom feeders. In some fisheries, otters, combined with overfishing, have caused sea urchin and shellfish populations to dwindle.The Channel Island fishery has instituted strict harvest regulations to sustain a healthy sea urchin population, but if otters move into the area, that could change.

The big picture, however, is that consumers, wholesalers, and restaurateurs need to continue to seek out seafood that is sourced in an ecologically responsible manner, from well-managed fisheries. How you eat your uni is up to you, but if you’d like to see them in their pristine natural state first, take a paddle around one of the Channel Islands.

For boat departures, click here.

The Santa Barbara Fish Market, located at the Harbor, sells live and processed uni. It’s adjacent to the Saturday morning Fish Market at the Harbor, held 7am to 11am. Local guys sell their catch straight off their boats; even if you just go to look, it’s a great little slice of local industry that not many tourists get a chance to see.

Spaghetti with Clams and Uni

The following recipe is from an uni article written by Los Angeles Times editor Russ Parsons. For information on how to purchase seafood from well-managed fisheries, click here to view Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Seafood Watch” list.

Serves 6

salt
2 T. olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
dash crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1 lb. spaghetti
1 c. white wine
2 lbs. small clams in shell (Manila type)
2 (2-ounce) trays sea urchins
Italian parsley, leaves only, left whole

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil and garlic in a large skillet over medium heat. Taste a bit of sea urchin. If it seems bitter, add a pinch of red pepper flakes to the skillet. Cook until the garlic is soft but not yet golden, 2 to 3 minutes. When the garlic has softened, add the white wine to the skillet and raise the heat to high. Cook until the wine has reduced by about half, 4 to 5 minutes.
Add the clams and 1 ½ trays of sea urchins, reserving the best ones for garnish. Cover and cook, stirring frequently, until the clams are all open, about 5 minutes.

While the sauce is cooking, add the spaghetti to the boiling water. Cook until it is just short of al dente, soft but with a thin thread of crunch in the center, about 7 minutes.
When the clams have opened, remove the skillet from the heat and stir to break up as much of the sea urchins as possible. They should blend into the sauce.

When the spaghetti is done, drain it, reserving one-half cup of the cooking water. Add the spaghetti and the reserved cooking water to the sauce and place it over high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce has slightly reduced, about 2 minutes. Taste and add salt if necessary. Divide among 6 heated pasta bowls and garnish with the reserved sea urchin and several leaves of parsley. Serve immediately.

[Photo credits: sea kayak, Flickr user mikebaird; uni, Flickr user rick; Scorpion Bay, Flickr user Brian Dunlay; seagull, Flickr user KyleChx; sea urchin, Flickr user mecredis]

A pilgrim in Peru: Part Three, arriving in Machu Picchu

by Don George on

On my third day in the Sacred Valley, I awoke at 5:40 to bird trills and wood smoke-scented air. I could hardly contain my excitement: Today was a day I’d been waiting for most of my traveling life: We were going to Machu Picchu!

We hit the highway at 6 am, passing sheep, pigs and cows being herded into pens and villagers in brightly woven capes and great hats walking along the side of the road. After 25 minutes we arrived in Ollantaytambo, where porters in bright red ponchos waited for Inca trail trekkers; too pressed for time to make the four-day trek, we were taking the quick route: a storybook blue train to Aguas Calientes, the town nearest Machu Picchu, where a bus would wend to the base of the site.

On the 30-minute train ride, Manuel pointed out where bridges had been washed out or railroad tracks twisted and tossed into the river by the raging floods of a few months before: stark reminders of nature’s raw power. This train, he said, had restarted operations only three months earlier. I thought of the Inca temples we’d seen and of Manuel’s words from two days before: “The Spaniards called them idolators and maybe they were — but I think they did very well; they had a big respect for nature.”

Then we reached booming, ragtag, pizzeria-and-hostel Aguas Calientes, where we walked through a maze of market stalls and boarded the bus for the 30-minute back-and-forth bounce up the dusty road to the ruins.Here’s the thing about Machu Picchu: No matter how many photographs you’ve seen, stories you’ve read or posters you’ve absorbed, nothing can prepare you for the surreal whoosh of actually being there. From the spot where the bus drops you, you walk up some narrow stairs and some winding paths, the sun beating on you, the sweat starting to trickle down your back, and then you reach a level area and take a few more steps and – whoosh! – suddenly there it is, spreading out before you, the gray granite walls and poky roof remains and green open lawns and jungly green rock-thrusts just beyond. Suddenly it hits you: Machu Picchu – I’ve arrived!

For a while you just stand and stare, absorbing it, letting it seep into you. Then eventually you become aware of the other travelers, some as stunned as you, and you decide it’s time to head into the ruins. And then time suspends, and you spend two, three, four – you don’t know how many – hours wandering, letting your hands trail along the rock, smelling the grass and the granite baking in the high-altitude sun. You visit the agricultural sector and the industrial zone, the Temple of the Three Windows and the Temple of the Condor, the Sacred Square and the priests’ chamber, the House of the Virgins of the Sun, the Watchman’s Hut, the cemetery, the Temple of the Sun and the sun dial. But what you are really doing is walking through time.

You’re imagining what it was like 500 years ago when a thousand people lived here – their woven clothes, the potatoes and maize they grew, the grain they stored, the granite they dragged laboriously from the quarry and the gold and silver and chisels, the wood and water, they used to break down and shape the stone. You imagine the runners arriving from Cusco, the robed priests, the weavers and warriors, the singers and teachers and pottery-makers.

And then you’re imagining what it was like 99 years ago, when a 12-year-old boy brought a discouraged Hiram Bingham to this rocky revelation. What must it have felt like to gaze on this tumble-jumble of intricately wrought walls and plazas, trees and vines? You imagine the crescendo of emotion and astonishment, the arc of enlightenment, as Bingham gradually realized what he’d found, what he called the Lost City of the Incas.

And then you think about what this discovery set off, a succession of events every bit as tangled and dramatic as those ruins: A foreigner recognizes the significance of this remote site, clears and plunders it, and in so doing creates a global icon that is responsible for sustaining as much as 80% of the local economy today, and that has literally put Peru on the international tourist map. This eventually encourages the Peruvian government to reallocate significant resources to study and preserve other ancient sites and artifacts in the area. The ever-swelling procession of Machu Picchu pilgrims, even as it underpins and integrates the local economy, threatens to undermine and disintegrate the site itself.

You recall what Manuel said on the train, how the torrential rain and floods of earlier this year dramatically demonstrated just how economically fragile the economy of the Sacred Valley is, how much it depends on this one site: From February to April, when floods took out those tracks from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, 78% of visitors to the region canceled their trips.

So visiting Machu Picchu is, like the site itself, multi-layered: There’s the historical backstory, the cultural backstory, and the economic backstory. And then there’s the pure human experience of being present at Machu Picchu. All of this roiled inside me as we roamed the ruins. I felt a pulsing presence there, but something wasn’t quite connecting, somehow it wasn’t getting through to me. Before the thought formed in my mind, I knew it in the pit of my stomach: I had to come back at dawn.

Manuel and I returned to Aguas Calientes late in the afternoon and I settled into the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, a glorious world of its own at the far end of town, all gracious adobe-walled rooms set among lush gardens with an outdoor sauna, pool and hot tub perfect for a post-Machu Picchu muscle-soothing soak. After a pisco sour welcome in the main lobby, I repaired to the dining room overlooking the Urubamba River; in a grand setting of exposed wood beams and flagstone floor tiles, with exquisite ceramic figurines decorating the walls, I slowly savored every bite of grilled Creole chicken with cassava croquette, washed down with an excellent Argentinian Malbec. The food was tasty, the setting artful, the service attentive and enthusiastic, and Machu Picchu soared in my head: All was aligned in my Inca cosmology. I looked at my watch. The sun god was approaching: Time for bed.

Previously:
A pilgrim in Peru: Part One, Arriving in Peru
A pilgrim in Peru: Part Two, visiting Moray, Pisaq and Ollantaytambo
Tomorrow: A pilgrim in Peru: Part Four, visiting Machu Picchu at sunrise
Related: How to hike the Inca Trail

This trip was hosted by both LAN and Geographic Expeditions, but the opinions, joy, and amazement concerning the people and ruins in Peru are purely my own.

The tombs of Rome–where art meets death

by Sean McLachlan on


If you’re going to your eternal rest in the Eternal City, you should go in style.

Sure, you can’t take it with you, but you can show off what you had, and with all the competition in this place you have to do something special to make an impression. Rome is filled with grandiose monuments to the dead. First there are the giant tombs and temples of the Roman emperors. They were worshiped as gods, so they always got a nice sendoff. The most famous is the mausoleum of Hadrian, a giant circular building by the River Tiber. It was so splendid that the Popes preserved it and expanded it with additional stories and fortifications before renaming it the Castel Sant’Angelo. Just a cannon shot away from Vatican City, it proved a convenient bolthole for the pontiff back in the days when he ran the Papal States, an independent nation in central Italy, and warred with his neighbors. It saved Pope Clement VII when Charles V sacked Rome in 1527. Neither Rome nor the Vatican had great defenses, but the Castel Sant’Angelo proved too much for the invaders. It’s not often a mausoleum saves lives! While it’s not one of the ten toughest castles in the world, it is an impressive tomb/fortification all the same.

Then you have the early Christians with their miles of catacombs, and the churches filled with saint’s relics. More on those in two later installments in this series. There are so many tombs and monuments both pagan and Christian that sometimes it seems Rome is dedicated to death. The city even has a Purgatory Museum.

The Renaissance was a golden age of church building. Italy, while still divided into several different nations, was a rich place. Seagoing merchants dominated the lucrative trade in the Mediterranean, and the Pope’s coffers were full from tithes and donations. Much of this money went to sponsor the great architects and artists of the age. These talented men built lavish churches and adorned them with giant paintings. The rich and powerful vied for one another to be buried in the most prestigious churches, and they commissioned tombs to match the glory of the buildings.

Every Renaissance church in Rome is filled with these masterpieces of funerary art. Marble bishops lie in state flanked by angels. The walls are adorned with paintings of noblemen surrounded by reminders of life’s brevity–skulls on wings, hourglasses, and the grim Reaper with his scythe. Even the floors are covered in tombs. Most are smooth flagstones, but on some floor tombs bishops and cardinals had their likenesses carved in bas-relief. While these are not the most impressive of the graves, they’re perhaps the most poignant. Centuries of visitors have walked over them until their features have blurred beyond recognition, and their epitaphs have been lost. These powerful clergymen, respected and feared in their time, have all but melted away.

This is the second in a series about my Vacation with the Dead: Exploring Rome’s Sinister Side. Tune in tomorrow as we visit Italy’s fallen heroes in the Military Museums of Rome!

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America’s best drive: the Beartooth All American Road

by Kraig Becker on

When you think of America’s best scenic drives, a few popular stretches of road always come to mind. For instance, the Pacific Coast Highway is a popular option, as is the Overseas Highway in Florida. North Carolina is home to the Outer Banks Highway and of course the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana is incredibly scenic too. But amazing as that last road is, it turns out that it isn’t even the best drive in its own state. That honor goes to the Beartooth All American Road, a highway so beautiful, the late Charles Kuralt once called it “the most beautiful drive in America.”

Known locally as U.S. Highway 212, the Beartooth officially begins about an hours drive southwest of Billings in the small town of Red Lodge. From there, it winds up into the Absaroke Mountain Range, passing crystal clear lakes and over breathtaking vistas, while briefly drifting into, and out of, Wyoming, before descending into Cooke City, 69 miles farther down the road. At its highest point, the highway reaches 10,947 feet above sea level, well above the treeline and into the rarefied Montana air, where the views can take your breath away just as easily as the lack of oxygen.

To get the most out of the drive, you’ll want to start in Red Lodge, a small town with a lot to offer visitors. While there, you’ll want to drop by the Montana Candy Emporium to grab lots of tasty treats for the road and stop to stroll the same streets as such legendary old west figures as Calamity Jane, Butch and Sundance, and Buffalo Bill Cody. If you plan to stay in town, drop by the Pollard Hotel, which has been open since 1893 and offers incredibly comfortable and modern rooms.The more adventurous visitors will want to check out Beartooth Bike Tours, which offers a 14-mile ride, all down hill, along a winding stretch of the Beartooth Highway. It is a fun and exhilarating way to take in the scenery.After setting out from Red Lodge, you’ll begin a slow, but steady rise up into the mountains, before hitting the infamous Beartooth switchbacks that will see you gaining altitude at a much more accelerated rate. At the 21-mile mark the road climbs up to 9190 feet before arriving at Rock Creek Vista Point, a spectacular spot to stop and take photos. From that location, you will find magnificent views of the surrounding valleys that quickly plummet away from where you stand on the scenic overlook. Bring a very good camera though, as words can’t do the place justice and you’ll want to capture the sight for posterity. The views that stretch out in all directions are amongst the most picturesque you’ll find anywhere on the planet.

Continuing up the road you’ll pass a host of other places where you’ll want to stop for photo opportunities as well, including an amazing view of Hell Roaring Plateau, as well as a pair of mountain lakes surrounded by rocky rocky outcroppings. You’ll also swing past the famous Beartooth rock formation, from which the highway draws its name, and the Top of the World store, the local equivalent of the Kwiki-Mart.

After cresting the Beartooth Pass, the road begins a slow, but steady descent into Cooke City, a tiny mountain town that traces its origins back to the late 1800’s when gold miners flocked to the area seeking their fortune. This sleepy little village is home to just 90 people and is best accessed by snowmobile during the long winter months. This end of the Beartooth Highway is definitely more remote and rustic, offering up some great hiking, backpacking, and mountain biking trails during the summer and snowshoeing and cross-country skiing routes when the snow starts to fly. Outdoors enthusiasts will enjoy the fishing, hunting, and climbing as well, but be sure to turn off your cell phone when you arrive. You won’t have any kind of service anyway.

While in passing through Cooke City you’ll want to stop into the Cooke City Store, an old fashioned market that first opened in 1886. The building still uses a number of the original fixtures from the 1800’s, and the two old fashioned cash registers are a sight to see. Walking through the front door is a bit like stepping back in time, and while the merchandise may be modern, the service and hospitality is a throwback to a bygone era. Definitely a treat!

Once through Cooke City, there are only a few more miles left on the Beartooth Highway, but perhaps it saves its best secret for last. The road comes to an end at the little known, and seldom used, Northeast Entrance to Yellowstone National Park, one of the crown jewels in the National Park System. So while you’re likely to be sad to leave the beautiful Beartooth Highway behind, you’ll have a host of new adventures awaiting you in the park, including even more beautiful landscapes and spectacular opportunities to spot wildlife too.

2011 marks the 75th anniversary of the Beartooth All American Higheway. It was first opened back in 1936 and has been wowing drivers ever since. If you plan to make the drive for yourself, you had better hurry though. It will only remain open for about another month or so before winter conditions force its closure until spring. Traditionally, the road reopens on Memorial Day weekend however, offering full access to all of its natural wonders once again.

The photographer who changed the way we see the world

by Sean McLachlan on


We’ve all seen them, those grainy series of black and white images showing animals walking or nude people climbing stairs or jumping. They’ve been used in art pieces, music videos, and are part of our visual heritage, but what are they all about?

A new exhibition at London’s Tate Britain tells the story of the photographer who took these enduring images. Eadweard Muybridge was a British immigrant to the U.S. in the 1850s. A skilled photographer, he traveled the world taking giant panoramic shots that he would then put on display, sort of an IMAX theater for Victorians. His seventeen-foot long panorama of San Francisco is one of the exhibition’s highlights.

His fame comes from his experiments with high-speed film in the 1870s. Muybridge wanted to answer the question of whether a galloping horse took all four hooves off the ground at the same time. People had been arguing about this for ages but the movement was too quick to catch with the unaided eye. Muybridge hired the Sacremento racetrack and put up a series of high-speed cameras that would be set off when the horse hit their tripwires. This technological innovation proved horses actually do leave the ground while galloping.

Muybridge became fascinated by human and animal movement and produced thousands of images. The people in his photographs are generally nude. While stuffy Victorian morality frowned on this sort of thing, since it was in the name of science Muybridge got away with it. One wonders how many of his books sold not for their scientific value, but because they contained plenty of cheesecake. He even made movies by stringing the images together on a spinning wheel called a zoopraxiscope. Muybridge was making movies twenty years before the movie camera was invented.

Muybridge at Tate Britain runs until 16 January 2011.

[Photo courtesy Library of Congress]