Absolute dark above and below, behind and to the sides. The only light, and it glowed strong, came from the narrow entrance to the Santa Cruz Island sea cave, some 30 feet behind me. The kayak rocked gently as waves washed into the cave, traveled to the back, and broke quietly against what sounded like a small beach. I feathered the paddle and turned myself about, to look out the entrance.
It felt good, being sheltered within this basaltic rock that had erupted out of the sea floor off the California Coast in the Miocene, 20 million years ago. Protected. I liked the sound of the ocean lapping quietly against the rock all around me. I liked the dark. It all—especially the quiet—reminded me of being in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, on a snowy November weekday five years ago. As the flakes began to fall about me, I sheltered within the burned-out cavity comprising half the trunk of a tree 25 feet wide and 200 feet tall. Sitting there within a creature over a thousand years old, munching on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, alone on the hilltop as I watched the snow drift down outside, I also felt sheltered. Safe. Part of something that had been going on for a long time.
But the best part of the many sea caves along the edge of Santa Cruz Island off the coast of southern California is emerging from them into the daylight. The world seems to explode around you. Oh yes, the sky is that gorgeous blue, isn’t it? The ocean’s surface dances green Read More