California’s Channel Islands offers some of the best natural beauty the world has to offer. Sunlight filtered by the canopy becomes an array of thin green-yellow splinters illuminating kelp fronds and fish immediately below. Juvenile calico bass and small kelpfish are well-camouflaged between brown kelp stripes and tangled blades. Small groups of sardines, almost invisible
against the blue sky above, dart inches beneath the surface where the canopy clears. Slight surge rocks the entire forest gently back and forth.