Santa Barbara County Beach Camping

Last year, on the way home from camping at Jalama Beach, we stopped to check out El Capitan State Beach Park, perhaps 15 minutes north of Santa Barbara. We had heard it was the best around and weren't disappointed. So we decided to try to reserve a campsite for May and were successful (about 7 months in advance).

Last Monday, we packed the car and headed north. Upon arrival, we did not like the chosen site so much. Fortunately, still being off-season, the campground was underutilized. Debby talked to the camp hosts and the ranger and got us moved to a site across from the camp hosts' site and backing up to El Capitan stream. The camp hosts, Mike (botanist) and Jean (artist), were nice and helpful. Debby borrowed their hammer (one of several items forgotten) and we had the car unpacked and the camp setup in a flash.




El Capitan Stream is slow moving by May with most of its rocky bottom exposed. It is lined by live oak, sycamore, alder and willow. There were surprisingly no mosquitos. Yours truly got three photos there by the camp: red-winged blackbird, Anna's hummingbird, and a marauding skunk who was rummaging through a bag of something, probably removed from a campsite. Debby got my picture there as well.





We wasted little time making our first excursion to the beach, perhaps a 5 minute walk from our site. The entire park is situated on the ocean side of the Southern Pacific tracks and the 101 freeway, so one's sense of isolation is enhanced. The beach is sand at water level, backed by rocks, and rimmed in the park by grassy picnic table areas and iceplant. There is day use parking and new facilities accessible from 8AM-8PM.






We returned toward dusk each evening, and the first two nights were treated to a dolphin display just off the shore. Mr. Photog-wannabe wasn't clever enough to capture one of the large jumps out of the water, so had to settle for a couple of flashed dorsal fins. The third night, there were no dolphins visible at the appointed hour, but there was entertainment of another kind. A family of four set-up next to us. While the husband surf-fished, the wife tended the two children. We observed him pull three nice-sized fish from the surf in about 10 minutes. He was good at it.




We brought the coffee press, two burner propane stove, and small charcoal grill, so we ate well. One large cooler held our perishables. Monday dinner was mushroom and asparagus fettucini. Tuesday breakfast was french toast with bacon and pure maple syrup (Debby pre-mixed the batter). The remaining breakfasts were our usual cold cereal with fruit, sometimes accompanied by sourdough toast smeared with Nutella. We snacked on Genoa salami, bread, cheese, and wine. There were pastrami sandwiches and cup-o-noodles for lunches, accompanied by tea. For Tuesday dinner, we prepared two baked yams and a steak on our grill. The only hitch in our plan came Wednesday evening, when the propane canister ran out before the pea soup was heated. So we had a cold dinner instead. Later, Debby borrowed a propane canister from the camp hosts so that we could have toast and coffee for our last breakfast in camp.

Our camp was attended by an assortment of critters and dirt birds that ate everything we threw their way, and some that we did not (a scrub jay scored my entire baggie of cereal on the first day, but fortunately dropped the bag still within view of the site, so I could retrieve it, filled with holes, but most of the contents still present.)






Debby would nap in the tent in the afternoons while camera dude went exploring. She really likes the feeling of being in her tent, though next time we will pitch in a more shaded location.

There is a 'nature trail' that wanders off from the main beach path toward El Capitan stream near where it enters the ocean. The nature path, lined with poison oak, meanders under a sycamore canopy through fields of nasturtiums accented with vinca major (periwinkle). The sycamores proved to be a playground for towhee's, while the shady river hosted a male and female mallard.









Imaging nature up close can be done two ways, from a distance with a powerful telephoto lens, or by moving the camera very close to the subject. In either case, the telephoto zoom remains on the camera; it's the lens I use 95% of the time in the field. Getting close with the 80-400mm zoom by itself is not possible; the lens' closest focus distance is on the order of 10'. To do close-ups with it, one needs to add a quality close-up lens to the front, in my case the Canon 500D, enabling focusing within inches of a tiny subject. The flowers above benefited from that technique, as do the dragonfly and bees below. They were found along the nature trail and at the beach, imaged with the lens set a little over 100mm. The butterfly would not pose for a close-up, so its image is from 12' at 400mm.





The daylight hours at our campsite were dominated by bird calls: red-winged blackbirds, spotted and California towhees, and scrub jays already shown, combined with the ubiquitous crows and doves. A Eurasian collared dove was kind enough to pose above our campsite. I wouldn't have expected to see this bird in these parts, so I may have mis-identified it. Unfortunately, I hadn't set the camera to a high enough ISO, so all pictures I took before it flew away were at 1/40s and none turned out. The best of the lot is below, along with a couple of crows from near the beach.




At night, the bird calls went away, replaced by an absolute cacophony of frog calls that was surprisingly loud. That's the riparian life. We scouted other sites away from the stream, where the night music would be only the sound of the surf. We might go for one of those sites next time, even though they are more exposed to wind.

Since El Capitan is all about the beach, it seems fitting to conclude with images of more critters found along the shore. The pelican fishing technique is particularly enjoyable to watch. One wonders how many of those dives is actually successful. And perhaps 50% are aborted at the last second.