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Our first visit here was on Christmas morning 2005. We took a week long vacation and headed out west, final destination Monterey, CA. After driving overnight from Tucson we watched the morning sun light up the coast as we walked along the beach. Our Christmas present was watching a pod of dolphins swim by.

This time it was warmer and, of course, there were more people. The state of California really knows how to pack campers and RVers into an area. We had a 25×25’ spot in the middle of the 3rd largest campground but we were really close to the beach. Close enough that I took the kitties to the beach one evening. I thought they’d be intrigued by the smell but the surf was so loud that they hated every minute of it. Even after I explained that this is where tuna comes from they still hated it! And now I will always be remembered by some people as the crazy woman that takes her cats to the beach. At least, I gave them something to talk about!

When we were here in December I took a fun picture of some bubbles on the beach that had my reflection. Because they had that oily rainbow look I assumed that human pollution had caused them. On this trip however, we discovered that the cause was all natural. Tar, natural gas and crude oil are seeping out of rock formations all along the Santa Barbara channel, both in the water and onshore. The Carpinteria tar pits (unmarked but near the middle of the campground) were excavated in the 1920s and the plant and animal fossils rival those found in the more famous La Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles.

The Santa Barbara seep area is the second largest in the world (the seeps in the Caspian Sea belonging to the Republic of Azerbaijan are the largest). Over 150 barrels of oil seep out of the Channel each day! Venoco built “tents” off shore over these seeps and they capture the escaping gas and convert it to energy.

Some of the oil and tar end up on the beach in small globs. My feet had black spots on the bottom of them for weeks! The local Chumash Indians gathered the tar and used it to waterproof their baskets and tomols (oceangoing plank canoes). In fact that is how the town earned its name. In 1769 Gaspar de Portola came upon the Chumash village (located roughly where the campground is now) and witnessed the inhabitants working wood into canoes. The name roughly translates as “carpentry shop”.

Another really cool thing we discovered on this trip is the nearby harbor seal rookery. Just south of the campground is a stretch of protected beach where California harbor seals have their young every year. Most of the seals swim out to feed along the Channel Islands in the summer but a few remain at the rookery year round. We went to the bluff above the rookery every afternoon to watch the seals.

Carpinteria is considered the world’s safest beach and even has offshore swimming platforms. The Channel Islands protect the area from winter storms, the Santa Ynez mountains to the west provide plenty of outdoor opportunities in case you get tired of the beach, and nearby Santa Barbara has UCSB with its cultural diversity.

Overall, Carpinteria is a working class community that seems to be a good mix of pragmatists and idealists being the northernmost part of southern Cal. The town is bike friendly and did I mention that there’s a brewery here? There’s even an Amtrak station right in town! It might be an ideal place to live in California for us (except that we can’t afford it!).

Photos: Don’t miss two photo galleries with Carpinteria photos: Coastal California and Carpinteria State Beach.

Notes: Our stay this year in Carpinteria at the State Beach campground was from 07/17/06 – 07/19/06.