It was one of those nights where the anticipation of the next day made it so I couldn't fall asleep. Or if I did fall asleep, it didn't feel like it.

It was around 4 in the morning when I heard jingling from my friend's house mate looking for the right key in the dark.

"Oh shit," I heard a startled voice say.

It was then that I realized that my college buddy Ryan never told his house mates that I was sleeping on his couch. Classic.

Lying there awake afterwards, the alarm went off just as expected. Blindly searching around with my hand I turned off the obnoxious noise.

The time had come to travel to the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. Considered to be the Galapagos of the northern hemisphere, it is one of the many biologically interesting places of the world. Just an hour off the coast of California, the islands have been separated long enough where many species have become endemic to the islands.

Both of us not having slept well, we downed an espresso shot and got on the road. It was just after 5 a.m., the sun was rising and there was already traffic on highway 1. Southern California never sleeps.

Stepping onto the boat, I wasn't sure what role to play. Am I the casual hiker that enjoys the outdoors or do I go full biologist and be the obnoxious person with binoculars, telephoto camera, and point and shoot? I decided to be casual about it but things changed quickly once the pod of dolphins appeared...

Hundreds of long-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus capensis) were seen in the channel crossing.

One of the many oil rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel. One of my college friends from the central valley originally thought they were Christmas trees the City had erected as they light up the channel at night.