I was coming from a week of aimless travel through California, trying unsuccessfully to cave. This was my last day, and I was determined to get underground in this state. Somehow.
I knew from e-mailing Doug Billing, my California caving connection, that the San Diego area had several sea caves, and also Midnight Creek, which was on the cover of the December 2002 NSS News. Midnight Creek would be too hard to find (not to mention enter without so much as a glowstick), but the sea caves could be accessed by kayak. And I knew there were kayak tours.
The Super 8 hotel lobby had the usual rack of tourist brochures, and I found the one kayaking brochure. Sure enough, this went through sea caves. It was part of an eco-tour, paddling through the landscape while the guide gives a nature lecture on it.
Of course, this was February. I could see tours during the spring, summer and fall, but even with the warmer weather, the ocean in February is reserved for the Polar Bear Club.
I called the number on the brochure, and gloriously, tours were running in February. Just show up Saturday at 12:30. The tours were north of San Diego, in La Jolla. It's pronounced La Hoya, but I pronounced it like it was spelled for my whole time there.
La Jolla is a huge scooped out cove with miles of beachfront and billions in real estate. There was a national golf tournament in progress as I was there, on the cliffs to the north. There was also a nude beach, but it was a gay nude beach, and from our guide's reports, this beach shattered the stereotype about gay people being attractive.
Our guide was older than I thought a kayak guide would be: in his fifties. He had a big van crammed with a dozen kayaks, oars, life vests, and back rests for the kayaks.
The guide kept calling me Jeremy. Another guy on the trip with similar glasses was called Jeremy, and he was occasionally called Sean. I normally wear contacts, but I forget them this trip, so I had been wearing the glasses all week. I prefer to wear contacts, since it's harder for the ocean to eat them. I should have bought Croakies from the surf shop we met the guide at, but that thought didn't come to me until I had launched.
I did have the forethought to rent a wetsuit, however. I�d be going into the ocean in February. Regardless of how close I was to the equator, I wanted insulation. The rental was ten bucks. Hopefully the guy who rented it yesterday didn't have crabs.
About ten of us showed for the tour. Three Canadians were in the group. They passed on wetsuits; maybe they were in an Ontario chapter of the Polar Bear Club.
I was expecting the Pacific Ocean to be different from the Atlantic. Smell a little different, taste a little different, maybe have a touch of cilantro. But salt water is salt water.
To the south I could see a big rock cliff, with several dark spots at the bottom. Those had to be the sea caves. The tour itinerary included nosing into the caves, so long as the tides allowed it.
Some of the couples on the trip picked two-person kayaks, and the rest of us grabbed singles. I pushed the nose of my single away from the shore. A wave came toward me, breaking over the nose and nailing my uncovered hands and face. That wetsuit was already the best ten bucks I'd ever spent. The water wasn't North Atlantic frigid, but it wasn't anything you'd voluntarily swim in.
I've done a little kayaking, but not enough so I'd feel comfortable going in a strange ocean by myself. This tour was just the thing.
The guide pointed out an odd-shaped yellow thing we could see by the beach. It was a depth marker that was washed to shore this week. That monstrous rainstorm I drove through Tuesday and Wednesday made its first American stop here, and pummeled the cove.
We paddled closer and closer to the caves. They stopped being black smudges and became distinct carved channels in the cliff face. One of them went in quite a distance, the guide said. We wouldn't see for ourselves, though, since we weren't going in. The tides were too rough. I was willing to risk it, but the guide had this stupid thing about risking the group's lives.
We paddled south, past the caves to rocky outcroppings. Harbor seals and pelicans and other sea birds lived up there. Not much to see from sea level, but nice to know I was so close to wildlife.
A huge amount of kelp normally grew in the area we were moving through. Almost all of it had been washed away by the storm. The guide showed us the few scant remnants, each holding a blasto-something filled with oxygen to give it buoyancy. This seaweed is what we have to thank for animal life on earth. Our oxygen atmosphere is because of billions of years of aquatic plant life breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen (with minor help from land-based plants). Without that atmosphere, there'd be nothing to breathe above the surface.
We were a mile out at sea now. It didn't take long at all. A couple thousand more of those and I'd be in Japan. The shore was still plainly visible, although details were hard to make out.
The guide found an enormous piece of seaweed, with a round blasto the size of a grapefruit. It looked like a cartoon hose with a knot in it. More storm detritus.
Meanwhile, I had found something round in the water as well. A tennis ball was just floating there, a mile out from shore. Somewhere, a soggy dog had nothing to chew. I put the ball in my kayak.
A whale watching boat was a mile past us, trolling for blowholes. Our guide said some whales are occasionally visible from our distance, so we all gave a good long stare. No whales, though.
Paddling back into shore was an optical illusion, since it's hard to gauge distance when you�re not hugging a cove wall. Without a frame of reference, you don't know how far you�ve gone or how soon until you get to rest. Not that my arms were getting tired.
"Are those glasses valuable?" the guide asked me. Vision is an important sense to me, so I said yes. "Then stick them in your suit so they don't fall off." The suit didn't have any pockets, but I could stick them down the back of my neck. Just don't lie down when I reach shore, I told myself.
Two people were ahead of me reaching shore, and I saw both of them wipe out (or blurry representations thereof). At a certain point, the cresting tide carries you to the sand in one big push. Both of them got rolled by the continual power of the wave.
My turn. I pointed my kayak as straight as I could, and picked the oar out of the water. The wave pushed me like a bobsled. The kayak cut through the surf perfectly straight. I kept the oar out of the water, which made it look like I was raising my arms in victory.
I bounced my tennis ball as the others were throttled to shore. Most of them kept upright, although there were one or two more wipeouts. I pulled moist glasses from my back. It's hard to polish glasses with a wetsuit.
I still had a chance to cave. After getting back into non-rubber clothes, I took my rental car to a beach just south of the harbor seals. (Considering the time it took me to find a parking spot, it would have been quicker to walk, or even swim.
This beach had caves in it. The big one was a manmade tunnel that led to tidal pools full of crabs. But next to it was a naturally made crevice. I stoop-walked inside. I was finally caving in California.
Inside I found three pigeons. I could have belly crawled through the sand to pop my head up in the pigeons secret roost, but they'd probably welcome me by either pecking or pooping. I didn't want either one as a souvenir.
It took all week, but I caved in California. For 10 seconds.