When we left off last week, Steve and I were coming down off the bluffs after our morning hike on Santa Cruz Island, getting pumped for our afternoon adventure.  And that adventure was – kayaking the sea caves!

The Channel Islands are home to dozens of sea caves across the park.  You can see two of them above (along with a very faraway armada of kayakers) in this shot from our morning boat ride in.  I was wildly excited to get out on the water.  I’ve done lots of calm flatwater kayaking, a tiny bit of eco-touring, and some surf kayaking (as a teenager) but kayaking the sea caves promised to be a new adventure.

My adventure buddy and I made our way to the kayak camp and got suited up in our gear – waterproof jackets (the adventure company provided them but we actually had our own), life jackets and helmets in case of sea cave wall crashing incidents.  (Spoiler alert: there were no crashing incidents.  But it’s good to be prepared.  Safety first!)  I was mad at myself for forgetting my paddling gloves – blister city.

We looked so cool in our helmets.

Once we were all suited up, our group made our way to the beach.  Adam, our guide, gave a short safety briefing and asked our small group to introduce ourselves and share where we were from, what kayaking experience we had, and what we were hoping to see on the trip.

And then it was time to hit the caves!

Steve and I launched our double kayak last, after an unsuccessful attempt to mount our GoPro to the bow.  (Apparently the GoPro surf and kayak mount doesn’t work on sea kayaks’ rough surfaces?  That would have been relevant information…  Anyway, I tucked it into my life jacket pocket for snapping old-school style.)

And then we were off!  We quickly caught up to the rest of the group and listened to Adam discuss the plan of attack for our first sea cave.

And then it was time to run the cave!

IT.  WAS.  SO.  COOL.

We floated around for a few minutes while Adam added more information – more safety chat and cave-running tips, plus some geology facts for more context about the caves we were checking out.

It was dark and spooky!  Okay, not really spooky.  But definitely dark – and insanely cool.  We ended up running about seven caves, and taking multiple passes at a few of them, for a very full and adventurous ninety minutes.  Not enough time!  We made every second count, and it was an afternoon that I think Steve and I will both remember forever.  I’ll let the pictures and videos speak for themselves.

Each of the caves had cool (and slightly intimidating) names.  This one, if I recall correctly, was Boatwrecker:

You don’t say…

Once Steve and I had a chance to get comfortable with the kayak – neither one of us had used a double kayak before; we’d always taken singles – I pulled out the GoPro and snapped a few pictures:

After a wonderful and humbling adventure on the water, we reluctantly paddled back to shore and boarded the Island Explorer for our trip back to the mainland.  I think we were both sad to leave Santa Cruz Island – I know that I personally felt we’d barely scratched the surface of all the adventure the island had to offer, and it’s not even the only island in the park!  But fortunately, the Santa Barbara Channel had a few more treats in store for us to sweeten the trip back.

First of all, the sun finally came out!  We didn’t mind the grey skies and seas, but it was a treat to see all that beautiful blue.

Then – as if they knew we needed a little more adventure – we got some visitors.

Dolphins!  These guys were so fun and playful as they rode the wake and swam alongside our boat.

Hello down there!

Exhausted and happy, we chugged into Ventura Harbor and past the Channel Islands National Park Visitors’ Center.

I can’t say enough good things about the Channel Islands Adventure Company, who ran the tour, or Adam, our guide.  The entire day was well planned and perfectly executed – speaking to the Adventure Company’s expertise at handling these kinds of excursions.  As for Adam, he really knew the island and was glad to point out the wildlife we encountered and to answer questions about tides, geography, and anything else we threw at him.  Most importantly, he knew the caves like the back of his hand, and he kept the whole group safe throughout the trip.  I’d absolutely book another adventure with Channel Islands Adventure Company, and I would recommend them to anyone.  (And no, they’re not paying me to say that – they have no idea who I am!)

It was an amazing adventure.  I’ll leave you with a couple of the GoPro videos I shot (and please don’t mind my shaky footage; I was using the GoPro, as mentioned above, as a handheld camera since my surf and kayak mount failed me).  Really, really epic day…