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ALL EIGHT CLUB MEMBERS: Paul Petrich Jr #117 and Tara Brown #178
- Tara Brown and Paul Petrich: ALL 8 CALIFORNIA CHANNEL ISLANDS TOGETHER
Ours is a tale of how two ordinary people developed an extraordinary relationship to the Channel Islands and each other by volunteering. We not only visited all eight Channel Islands, we slept on all eight together. But Sant a Cruz Island stands out for us: We met, got engaged, and married on Santa Cruz Island.
Each of us was raised with family who loved being on the water and taught us as children both respect and passion for everything aquatic. Paul grew up with an extended family, all who made their living from the sea near San Pedro, California. Tara grew up swimming, sailing, and water skiing on the Ohio River near Evansville, Indiana. Paul’s first trip to the islands was in 1946 on his first family vacation after WWII. It was to Avalon on Catalina Island. Tara’s first trip was to Santa Cruz Island around 1979 with a friend who had worked for The Nature Conservancy, soon after Carey Stanton had bequeathed the Conservancy most of the island. Tara recalls Carey Stanton was still alive and the TNC office for Santa Cruz Island was on Santa Barbara’s Stearns Wharf.
We met in October 2004 on a camping/kayaking trip at Scorpion Anchorage, Santa Cruz Island. Tara was social chair of the Santa Barbara Ski and Sports Club and had organized the outing, renting a half dozen kayaks from Channel Islands Kayaks next to Island Packers in Ventura. When the time came to leave, no one offered to help gather the gear and kayaks —- except Paul who volunteered to help. That weekend, and Paul’s act of kindness, kindled a friendship. It was only by coincidence that they met, as Paul was camping and kayaking with another group. He was snorkeling solo offshore the Scorpion Anchorage beach when Tara seemed like she needed help.
Two years later in 2006, the friendship began to blossom as they carpooled from Santa Barbara to Channel Islands Naturalist Corps (CINC) training lectures at the National Park Headquarters in Ventura. Back then, people such as Tanya Atwater, Chuck Rennie, and Steve Junak gave live presentations to the volunteers about their knowledge of the islands and the marine life around them. The CINC is an all volunteer group that leads interpretive hikes on the National Park’s five islands and acts as docents on the whale watching boats promoting the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Through the CINC, Tara began volunteering overnight on the NPS islands, most memorably for a full week on Santa Barbara Island in January 2009 when no one visited the island! But Tara’s favorite island then became Anacapa, which gained most of her solo volunteer signups.
Meanwhile, by 2010, Paul became an all 8 member. After Catalina, the two US Navy owned Islands became Paul’s next landings. He set foot on number 2 ,San Clemente, in 1955 when working as a sport fishing boat deck hand out of Buster Hyder’s 22nd Street Landing. The sport fishing boat Paul worked aboard had cut loose a stuck anchor on a previous trip. Frank Hall, the skipper of the sport fishing boat ( Offshore ) left Paul to wait for a coming minus tide, while he went to fish another cove. Paul retrieved the anchor and recalls how amazed he was at the abundance of Black Abalone that were exposed in the tide pools! Paul’s third island was San Nicholas in 1963, when he was in the United States Marine Corps bivouacked in tents for two weeks training with ground to air missiles. Paul recalls that the Channel Island Fox was seen almost every day, and it behaved the same way it does today on the six Channel Islands where it exists: Oblivious to possible danger!
Santa Cruz Island became #4 for Paul when in the mid 1980s Paul volunteered for The Nature Conservancy to build barb wire fences to coral feral sheep on Stanton’s 4/5th of the island. The two summers he volunteered Carey Stanton was still alive and running his ranch. 35,000 feral sheep eventually were removed from that part. Just prior to becoming a CINC member in 2006, Paul also volunteered for the TNC to search for the last few remaining Golden Eagles on Santa Cruz Island that had been eliminating the CI Fox . The Golden Eagle search team climbed various mountain tops to call in by radio sightings of Golden Eagles to an on site helicopter team who responded by netting them from the air.
After joining CINC in 2006, Santa Rosa and Anacapa soon followed as Paul’s 5th and 6th islands. Number 7 came when he visited San Miguel to train for hikes in 2009. On that day John Olguin ( known as the “father of recreational whale watching” ) reenacted his landing of Juan Cabrillo, while representing the San Pedro Cabrillo Aquarium/Marine Museum. John was a life guard at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro when he started what became the Cabrillo Aquarium/Marine Museum.
Paul’s final 8th island came volunteering in 2010 on Santa Barbara Island and involved a week camping. It was the beginning of the Montrose DDT Settlement Project on that island. Paul helped build the green house to nurture native plants. Once planted they would restore protective habitat again for nesting sea birds. Paul became All 8 California Channel Islands Club Member # 117.
We did not start dating until 2011. Tara was involved with another favorite guy since 2004. But during one car pool trip there was indication that things had changed. Paul started his second round of visiting all 8 Channel Islands with Tara! Our first island overnight was on Santa Barbara Island Thanksgiving weekend 2011. We volunteered to plant natives plants from the nursery there for the Montrose Settlement Project. The Montrose Settlement Project was to reestablish habitat for pelagic birds who had been decimated by the dumping of the effluent of DDT into the ocean off the Palos Verdes peninsula near LA harbor.
From then on, we acted as a team of two dedicated CINC volunteers committed to the ocean and the islands. We volunteered for overnights on the Truth Aquatics boats, leading multi-day hikes on Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Anacapa islands. During the summers, we gave campfire presentations on the whales and the Channel Islands National Park at Carpinteria State Beach and El Capitan State Beach. We also volunteered for Channel Islands Restoration, staying overnight pulling ice plant on San Clemente Islands in November, 2013 and fennel on San Nicholas Island in February, 2014. On San Nicolas we also helped keep the many Elephant Seals, there for their annual mating and pupping season, from climbing onto the asphalt Navy roads. They did this to warm up in the sun. We shoveled sand berms away from the road so the Elephant Seals could not waddle onto the roads!
Paul recalls there were definitely no Elephant Seals on San Nicolas Island in 1963. In fact, Buster Hyder, when interviewed by Marla Daily for the writing of her “Santa Barbara Island”, is quoted as saying no Elephant Seals were on the Channel Islands all the while he owned 22nd Street Landing through to the mid 1960s. Now, as Channel Island Naturalists Corps volunteers, we announce Elephant Seals number maybe 200,000!
Almost every month Paul and Tara have been leading interpretive hikes on the CINP islands an/or acting as docents aboard local whale watch boats that ply waters around the islands. We often stayed overnight, mostly on Santa Cruz and Anacapa now. For our efforts, Paul not only earned the “Blue Whale Award” or being CINC’s 2012 outstanding volunteer of the year, but also the 2013 National Volunteer of the Year Award from the National Marine Sanctuary. We went to Washington DC for the gala award ceremony and had a personal congratulations with US Representative Lois Capps. Tara received the “Blue Whale Award” for 2016 outstanding volunteer, after she had completed her “all 8” and became number 178 by chartering a flight of CINC volunteers to San Miguel island on May 25, 2016. It was with Channel Islands Aviation, who then made regular flights from Camarillo Airport.
To achieve the “all 8” overnights together, we did the Catalina Marathon in March 2013, staying in Avalon. We camped with the Santa Barbara Ski Club on Santa Rosa in September, 2014. Finally, getting certified to lead the Point Bennet hike, we spent an incredible weekend on San Miguel Island together in September 2017. Betsy Lester and her family were there visiting the gravesite of her father, Herbert Lester! We hiked with them three days in a row! Betsey grew up on San Miguel Island!
So it was natural for Paul to schedule a trip to Main Ranch on Santa Cruz Island to get down on his knees and propose to Tara in May 2019, and for us to be married in Delphine’s Cyprus Grove and honeymoon on Santa Cruz Island October 19-23, 2019.
Throughout the almost 20 years of our volunteering, and now five years of marriage, we have kept our commitment to the Channel Islands. For Paul, the second time around achieving “All 8” has been a dream come true! Santa Cruz Island will always hold our most precious memories of us meeting, coming together, and pledging our love.
