During my first kayaking trip in 1999 across the SB Channel to Santa Cruz Island, I certainly didn’t foresee a book about my kayaking trips melding into conservation success stories across the Channel Islands NP.

However, in February 2021, after getting great looks and photographing bald eagle known as A-03 from my kayak and on the sheer cliffs surrounding Scorpion Anchorage on Santa Cruz Island, that keystone species inspired me to move forward with what has become “Paddling into a Natural Balance, Stories of Kayaking and Conservation around Channel Islands National Park.”

Ten chapters and 170 photographs vividly describes conservation efforts observed from my kayak, and from someone who has written about and photographed most of those conservation stories across the chain since the late 1990s.

- Chuck Graham