An English country girl in California: July 2015

The Isle of Avalon, Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, the meerkat island of Life of Pi, the Isle de Muerta sought by Cap’n Jack Sparrow, Long John Silver’s Treasure Island, the Isla Nublar home of Jurassic Park… centuries of legend and literature are testament to the enduring fascination of sea-girt outcrops. Some 30 miles off the coast of San Francisco lies an equalling beguiling outcrop, visible on clear days as a jagged interruption to the horizon. It is the Farallon Islands, the Californian Galapagos, home to thousands of seabirds, sea lions and great white sharks. Only naturalists can set foot on the Farallon rocks and few even glimpse the islands from the mainland, hidden as they usually are in a bank of fog. Even fewer actually see them up close, so it was a rare privilege to set sail on Ebenezer III with Cap’n Richard Schaper, due west from the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco’s own enchanted islands.

Approaching the Farallon Islands. The name is Spanish for

'rocky promontory rising from the sea.'

Accurate, if unsuitably unromantic

But before we could approach those far-off islands, I had to complete a self-imposed quest for a very English treasure: pork pies. In a rash moment, I had told the rest of the crew that, as the token English girl, I would bring lashings of ginger beer, Scotch eggs and pork pies. Unfortunately, I failed to take into account that few Californians even know of such meaty staples of the great British picnic, let alone sell them in stores. A fruitless search of fine-food shops sent me online to BBC recipes and thence to our excellent local butcher’s, Marina Meats, to ask the advice of manager David Budworth about the feasibility of making pork pies myself (I discarded the Scotch-egg plan in the interests of prudence). He thought it was worth a crack and duly put together the requisite chopped pork, lard and pig’s trotters, which I lugged up the steep hill home in some trepidation. My mother and sister are superb cooks, but although I have been known to throw a decent dinner party, I am nowhere near their skill level and neither of them had ever attempted the hot-water-crust-pastry-and-pork-jelly combination. This is mainly because pork pies are everywhere in the UK, but in this benighted country of corn dogs and Philly cheese steaks, drastic measures must be taken.

Stuffed with chopped pork and brushed with beaten

egg, the pies await the oven's heat

Out of the oven and, amazingly, out of the ramekins!

Well, I am proud to report that the result was not half bad. The hardest thing is the pastry, getting it to the right consistency to press into the moulds without getting any cracks in the side, as the jelly then leaks out when it’s poured in, but for a first effort they were jolly good. The proof is in the eating and there wasn’t a scrap left after the voyage, so I must have done something right. Next time, they’ll be even better, and San Franciscans will at last understand the pleasure of a proper pork pie.

Yum! The pastry wasn't perfect, but I think they're recognisably pork pies

Proud ship's cook!

Laden with pork pies and cans of ginger beer, I arrived on board Ebenezer III on a sparklingly clear evening, so clear that the Farallon Islands themselves were visible on the horizon as I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. A good omen, I felt. Dinner was taken on deck as the sun slipped behind the Marin hills above Sausalito, followed by a few titbits of sea shanties and campfire songs. I love the verse ’Oh you’ll never get to Heaven; In a baked-bean tin; Cos a baked-bean tin; Got baked beans in’, although I did have to explain what baked beans were… Being the only girl, I had the luxury of the forward cabin to myself and settled down to read A Room with a View, glancing up at the moon through the forward hatch. A very different vista to that which Lucy Honeychurch gazed over in Florence, but equally entrancing.

Evening sun over Sausalito

Richard and Sean toast a tasty shipboard meal

of meatballs and kale salad. No hard tack here

Cheers! Me and Cap'n Richard

A grey mist and a glassy sea greeted us at 5am the following morning, the bridge standing out a deep, dark red against the grey-green hills. We had timed our departure for slack tide, so nothing was against us, but the still dawn air meant we had to motor out. Roger of Swallows and Amazons would have been pleased, but the rest of us, subscribing to the mantra that sail is better than steam, were glad when we caught a breeze beyond Point Bonita and could settle down to a long, easy motion, lying close to the wind, with the clouds gradually giving way to blue.

'A grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking'

Is that a hint of blue above the bridge?

Almost enough to make a sailor's trousers

Steering under the Golden Gate Bridge

Scanning the horizon for a hint of the Enchanted Islands

An early fisherman makes his way home

'And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying'

Looking back east to the rising sun above San Francisco

It's always a good sign when the captain is relaxed

Sailing heaven: filled sails and a blue sky

It wasn’t long before the fever of Captain Ahab seized us, when the round, white bulk of the Farallones appeared on the horizon for all the world like the legendary Moby Dick. Suddenly, a shaft of sunlight glittered on flung spray: a pod of whales was swimming between us and their rocky cousin, greeting the day with a joyful display of aquatic acrobatics. White plumes and black flukes transfixed our eyes, meat for binoculars and not harpoons. Beyond, the sea deepened to an inky dark blue, capped with white horses, stretching to the sun-dappled coastline to the north. The cliffs of Point Reyes, the furthest point of Drake’s Bay, stood out crystal clear, without a hint of heat haze to soften the pinks and greens and brown of the land. Just such a view must have greeted Sir Francis Drake in 1579, when he sailed straight past the Golden Gate, hidden as it was in fog, to land in a lonely Marin beach to careen his ship The Pelican (later renamed the Golden Hind). Amazingly, he landed on the Farallones first, naming them the Isles of St James. Thank goodness he didn't come to grief on the rocks, as so many captains have, or the Spanish Armada might have got rather closer to English shores than it did.

That far-off white lump on the horizon is the first sight of the Farallon Islands

Someone upstairs evidently gave His blessing to our voyage

Myron resists the call of the 'white whale'

A tanker approaches, with Point Reyes beyond

The Farallon Islands!

In the present day, only one other sail was to be seen on that morning, standing off to the south. A few fishing boats clung to the coast and giant tankers steamed inexorably along the wide shipping lanes, but no one came close to disturb us on our westerly course. Gradually, fortified by the pies and delicious lentil stew, the white lump on the horizon resolved itself into an uneven line of guano-dappled stone, ringed by sea lions and crowned by a lookout station far above two caves on the waterline, their dark depths hinting at treasure. A long, low hut and two pretty Victorian cottages were the only signs of habitation, except for the National Park Service sign by the only landing stage. I say landing stage, it’s actually impossible to land on the island. Instead, boats sidle into reach of a crane that swings men and goods alike ashore on days of quiet water.

A lookout station crowns the islands' highest point

The only landing place. Not for the faint-hearted

The naturalists' cottages, surprisingly pretty Victorians built in 1879

Island caves, stuffed to the gills with pirate treasure, of course

Me on the 'margarita seat'

It’s a lonely, windswept life for the US Fish & Wildlife Service research scientists and naturalists stationed here, yet I doubt they would be bored: these islands aren’t known as the Californian Galapagos for nothing. Thirteen species of birds nest here, 25% of all California's breeding seabirds: ashy storm-petrel, fork-tailed storm-petrel, Leach's storm-petrel, double-crested cormorant, Brandt's cormorant, Pelagic cormorant, black oystercatcher, western gull, pigeon guillemot, tufted puffin and two kinds of auklets, Cassin's and rhinoceros. I wonder if the latter two are related to the legendary Great Auk? On the seas around we saw thousands of common murre, ungainly in the air, swift underwater. Groups of sea lions leapt through the water in pursuit of their food, swooping with a grace that is hard to imagine if you’ve only seen them lying indolent in the sunshine at Pier 39. Five species of pinnipeds (wonderful name!) live here: northern elephant and fur seals, Californian and Stellar sea lions and harbour seals. This is a major breeding ground for the great white shark, but the cavalier antics of the sea lions indicated that they were absent that day – indeed, according to news reports we saw later, the local sharks were hanging around Monterey in one of the largest gatherings ever seen. Instead of sinister fins, we saw the white bulk of a mola mola, floating near the surface with a confused seagull trying to alight on its back and wondering why it kept moving. There are odd things in the deep!

Those black dots? Birds. Millions of them.

In the 19th century, guano was harvested here, and later birds' eggs,

until the practice was outlawed and the islands protected, first by order

of President Roosevelt in 1909 and as a National Wildlife Refuge

from 1969. Now, the islands are encompassed by the

Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary

The steep switchbacks leading to the lookout station,

seen from the west

The North Farallons, far off to the north-west

Did I mention our captain was relaxed?

The worst thing for scientists here, I imagine, would be acclimatizing to the constant noise of squawking birds and honking sea lions. Goodness, they’re loud. Fortunately, from our position well clear of the treacherous rocks, we could ignore the cacophony and concentrate on the constantly shifting view, from the spiky Devil’s Teeth that stand up on the north side to the enchanted bridge of stone on the west. I wonder what magical land one would find if one dared to pass under its arch? On the south side, a tiny satellite island resolved itself into the outline of a sea lion: Nature’s own memorial to the millions that must have made their home here over the centuries.

The Devil's Teeth, watching over the home of the

world's largest great white sharks

Ebenezer III shows her paces

A view few ever see: the Farallones from the west

A gateway to a fairy kingdom?

The sea lion's monument

Feeling as if we had been initiated into mysteries, we set a course east to the Golden Gate as the sun passed the zenith and a fog bank loomed behind us. Ebenezer III proved swifter than Karl the Fog, however, swooping and surfing on a rising swell, flying before the wind with reefed sails as the last of the tide surged out of the Gate. Thank goodness for a competent captain and a well-found vessel: these seas are thrilling, but definitely not for novice sailors. Waves loomed behind us, pushing up the stern and boiling away from the bow in a swirl of green water. Finally, the swell lessened and the breeze dropped, pushing us under the bridge in soft, friendly waters, the sun triumphing over the cold wind at last and forcing us to discard our many layers. It had been freezing out on the water, more like Alaska than California, so I had been extremely glad of my toasty warm Peddies socks and MUDS boots from Noble Outfitters, which are made for trudging through muddy fields but which proved to be excellent seaboots. My Noble jacket is also a welcome new addition to my wardrobe, elegantly cut with a neatly stowed hood and lots of pockets, although I could have done without the Velcro on the collar catching my hair. Some sort of flap to cover it would be good. Anyway, it’s a jolly smart jacket, properly waterproof and in an elegant ‘wine’ shade that reminded me of Classical Civilisation lessons and Homer’s ‘wine-dark sea’.

Aaron sets a course for home

Rule, er, America...

All the excitement got a bit much for Myron, Richard and Sean...

The Polaris Voyager, an oil tanker presumably bound for

Alaska that seemed to be taking a rather zig-zagging route.

Last seen heading west, rather than north...

Land ahoy! The far-off San Francisco skyline.

Staggeringly, two people have actually swum from the Farallones to San Francisco,

Ted Erikson in 1967 and Joseph Locke last year

Approaching the Golden Gate Bridge

The Sutro Baths, Cliff House and Sutro Tower.

Odd seeing familiar places from the seaward side

A brown pelican launches off the water after a spot of fishing

Turning north towards the still waters of Sausalito, we cracked open the rum for a round of Dark and Stormys, toasting a thoroughly successful voyage. We may not have the resources of Vitaliano, Count Borromeo, who in the 17th century gave orders that four rocks amid the waters of Lake Maggiore in Italy be covered with earth and turned into pleasure gardens, Isola Bella, Isola Madre, Isola S. Giovanni and Isola Superiore, but with the Ebenezer III, we had reached our very own Enchanted Islands.