My Dad was a pilot and one time, years ago when he came to Santa Barbara to visit me, we rented a small place from the airport to go enjoy the coastal, ocean and island sights from a bird’s-eye view.

I recall that he was carefully and methodologically working through the pre-flight checklist.
 
When he checked the compass, he paused and stared at it for a long moment, then looked around at the mountains and ocean, then reached out and tapped the compass repeatedly.

I caught his wrist and said, “Yes, Dad, that mountain really is to our north and the islands are to our south. We have transverse mountain ranges.”

As a navigator, he really had to come to grips with that strange reality because his mind and that compass were saying different things.

Recently at Goleta Beach as I was talking with colleagues from the East Coast, I pointed out that just below Campus Point (which we could clearly see from where we were), was an east-facing beach. I always enjoy pointing that out to folks.

As we enjoyed our early evening chat, the sun set over land to our west, not over the sea, driving home the directional point.

Our directions just seem warped. I know it is just a result of our transverse (running east-west) mountain ranges, but it just seems wrong. On my charter boat and in my bait & tackle shop, I heard people all the time talk about taking their boats out of the harbor and heading north.

That’s actually a bad idea because it would put them right back into the harbor and up onto West Beach, much to the dismay of beachgoers. To run up the coast, people actually steer westward. And to go fish or whalewatch down the coast toward Carpinteria, we head eastward.

When we stand on most local beaches and look at the islands, they are south of us. This means the Santa Barbara Channel runs east-west, which explains why we get such powerful winds and tall, dangerous seas out on the channel.

Weather moves down our coast and wraps around Point Conception, picking up power and speed, then aiming at San Miguel and Santa Rosa islands in the morning. Then, in the afternoon the winds come howling down the channel like screaming banshees. Experienced boaters know this well and play along the coast when the winds are wild out in the channel.

Many of our smart phones have built-in compasses. Take a look-see for yourself — the directions you had in your head may not quite match what the compass says. It can be baffling.