San Nicolas Island and the Area 51 Connection

Never seen any surfers around there but several friends of mine are hard core fishermen in the area and know most of the fishing boat captains and the rest of the scalawags in the area.

According to some of them, a few reputable fishermen fish at night in those massive kelp forests off the island. (check out picture of the island presented a few posts back) So there are civilians around the island who see what's going on there in general. They say the regularly see military training going on there during certain times of the year.

I've personally been fishing with the same friends a few miles away from the island when the navy was doing bombing and cruise missile tests. You could hear the booms and we watched the sky flare up as ordinance exploded. It was actually pretty cool to watch. Add the fireworks display coming from san nicolas with the fishing. the greasy food from the galley and maybe the beer (come on it's what fishermen do) and a decent bite on the calico bass and the occasional sheephead and ubiquitous sculpin it was a badass overnight fishing trip.

THe area has a ton of navy activity. Much of it hidden. For instance one summer I was on the ferry going from long beach to avalon on catalina. We were about a 1/4 mile out from docking at avalon when behind the ferry about a 1/4 mile behind us in our wake a 688 SNN Los Angeles class attack sub surfaced in the same orientation of our ferry and followed us to avalon harbor. The sub anchored about a 1/4 mile out from where we docked at the pier there and the crew took launches to the dock where we were for their shore leave. The point is this sub had either been following our ferry or what I suspect we cruised right over it as it waited for us to pass for safety reasons then surfaced and followed us in. The point is I was right off the coast of Los Angeles in the shipping lanes of the largest and busiest port on the american continent's western coasts and we cruised right over a submerged nuclear attack sub with god knows what sort of ordinance inside her and never realized it, so it's very possible that just about anything could be going on around the channel islands off of los angeles.

In the late 70's my mom was on a small sailing boat (31foot) anchored at sea in between the channel islands. It was about 4am and she decided to go topside for a smoke. WHile doing so she watched in the silent night as a glow appeared underwater off the starboard side of the boat about 100 feet off the bow. The glow got bigger and brighter and then shot out of the water in a blob of glowing light that went strait into space at a 45 degree angle. It was dead silent the entire time. It was a foggy night and anything could have been in the area. But, the light was inside the fog envelop around the boat. whatever it was was close to the boat and took off right along side it. Could have been military, could have been some sort of USO. My mom believes it was a USO and not military.

There is a lot going on in the channel islands that is classified. The Janet flights could be to ship personnel associated with naval undersea drone projects. Thats my best bet. It's the future of naval warfare, and thats probably where they will test the tech out. It's safe and the coast guard are aggressive about keeping foreign intelligence and spy's masquerading as fishing boats out. You know since they have so much narcotics interdiction to do. They could potentially board and search any boat in the area thats suspect.

Thanks! Yeah, I used to see fishermen out there when I was surfing. Many of the surfers were fisherman, in fact. Seemed like they had a nice thing going - fish/dive/surf in a beautiful, remote (relatively) location. Many of those islands have really rugged coasts, and if there are good surf spots scattered throughout them, you usually have to know where to go beforehand, and know when there is swell activity that is amenable to those particular spots.

I never saw any military activity out by Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands. But I did see a blue whale (we think!) breach about 100 yards in front of our boat, and we estimated it to be about 80 feet in length.

Originally posted by estebantoledo
reply to post by Erongaricuaro

 

Did you ever see surfers on the island?

I used to surf off of nearby Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands. And I'd do so without stepping foot upon the islands. The surf spots on these islands are not very well known. So... just wondering if SNI ever saw surfers.

Over time there has been some surfing there but there are no really good surfing spots I am aware of. I have known some avid surfers that have spent time on the island but typically they don't pursue that activity there, or not for long. There have been various military officers in charge there that have had different policies about permitting beach activities and under what circumstances and when they are allowed, often outright banning surfing and ocean swimming activities altogether.

A spot known as Corral Harbor is a nice area for snorkelling and various spots for good fishing but over the years there have been some unfortunate occurrences and even deaths, so recreational activities have gone through various policy changes. At best times any water activities have at least required a buddy-system, much of it restricted to full-time island personnel only and only during certain seasons. The island is one of the few spawning grounds for elephant seal and during those times the beaches are densely covered with these mammoth carnivores - the long-tusked males often battling for rank and pick of the females, their necks scarred and bloodied. Not a nice place for 200-pound-weakling humans at those times.

Some 30-odd years I had been involved in activities on SNI and the final 8 years or so of my career worked and resided there full-time. I do miss the old rock and its rugged beauty. The book Island of the Blue Dolphin was written about San Nicolas Island and an old indigenous woman that was overlooked when missionaries vacated the island in the 1800's sometime. She survived there 16 years in solitude until "rescued" at that time, taken to Santa Barbara, California, but only lived a few more months likely succumbing to disease encountered in the populated world. A little bonus trivia thrown-in for you because I felt chatty.

reply to post by Erongaricuaro


Thanks! I grew up in Santa Barbara, and we read Island of the Blue Dolphins in elementary school. I remember it being a beautiful story. And I would always think of the book when I visited the other islands.

reply to post by estebantoledo


Imagine surfing and diving/fishing for fish in those kelp beds!!! Does sound like a amazing deal. Your surfing buddies had a pretty damned good equation there.

My dad surfs several times a month which is pretty cool in my book since he's 65. He keeps it mellow these days with a 9 footer and sticks to easy spots like huntington beach, seal beach santa monica but back in the day he did rincon, sunset beach, and several places up north. Even took a trip at 60 with his santa cruz college buddies to papua new guinea to surf for three weeks. My mom was pissed she wanted the two of them to go to italy together not him to run off by himself and his buddies to new guinea. He still hangs out with some hard core surfers who go to the exotic hard to reach places just to surf. Would be interesting to see if any of them surfed off of san nicolas island, and to get their scoop on things.

But forget all of the secret govt speculation! You got to see a blue whale breach!!!! Thats cooler than any stupid military secret navy activity. I'd like to have been in your place when you saw that. Tell me about how it went down. Loved to hear about what it's like spotting a blue whale.