VENTURA : Park’s Visitors Center to Offer Live Video

Visitors to the Channel Islands National Park center in Ventura will see something new this summer--a live, underwater video of divers cavorting through kelp forests near Anacapa Island, officials said.

On a giant television screen at the visitors center in Ventura Harbor, people can watch as two divers point out different types of sea life in a deep kelp bed near the island. Visitors will be able to ask the divers questions using a remote two-way device, park spokeswoman Carol Spears said.

The video will be sent to the mainland via microwave, making it possible for landlubbers to see what ocean life looks like 11 miles from the real thing, Spears said.

Although the five-island chain is a national park open to the public, many people cannot afford the price of a boat ride to it, she said, adding that others are afraid of diving.

Equipment for the show will be paid for with a $28,000 grant given to Ventura’s visitors center by the National Park Foundation.

Marine life living in habitat surrounding the islands range from microscopic plankton to one of the largest creatures, the blue whale, Spears said.