Sea Lion Caves

​On yet another drizzly day, we stepped in to a world that was created over 25 million years ago to get a first hand feel of the persistence of nature, the power of the pounding ocean and the timeless joy of flubbery marine mammals.

We visited the Sea Lion Caves located just outside Florence.

As soon as we entered we were informed there were no Stellar Sea Lions in da house. We were neither disappointed nor deterred. Instead we were excited to descend into America's largest sea caves. Carved out of basalt rock the caves were advertised as twelve stories tall and as wide as an American football field. 

We walked out into the light drizzle and took some photos outside before taking the lift down into the subterranean caves. The ride in the lift seemed to last forever because we managed to discuss all the emergency scenarios, Henry had a jump around to test the cables, I giggled at the memory of Peter Sellers and farts in lifts, and we also compared the ride to the lift going in the opposite direction in the Empire State Building in New York. Yes, it was a long ride down!

The small caves we first entered were dimly lit with red and green lights and there was a screened viewing platform where you could observe the sea lions in the massive amphitheater of the main cave. We confirmed there was not a single sea lion to be seen but we enjoyed watching the waves roll in, crashing over the rocks, so we could get a glimpse of how the caves were formed over the millennia. The main cave lived up to the hype. It was enormous and echoey and had many caves and tunnels leading off the main chamber. We did see a few bats fluttering about at the top of the cave and we could see why it was such a favorable environment for the colony of sea lions that call the cave "home." It was clearly a sanctuary for seals, seabirds and a diverse array of other shore creatures too. 

I loved that care had been taken to preserve the sanctity of the cave so that us humans could not disturb the precious habitat. We could observe but we could not enter.

To the north you could walk up a staircase for another view of the coastline where we could see other inlets and coves leading round to the Heceta Lighthouse winking at us in the drizzly distance.

We loved every minute of this roadside tourist attraction.