Santa Cruz Island Painted Cave - Channel Islands National Park
This enormous sea cave—the longest in North America and one of the lengthiest in the world—plunges a quarter-mile into the side of Santa Cruz Island, within Channel Islands National Park. “When the tide is right, the cave opening is big enough to drive a 60-foot boat almost halfway into the tunnel, and kayaks can slip in even deeper,”
When you get about two-thirds of the way back, the cave narrows,” he explains. “You paddle through and enter a huge, pitch-black chamber.” Back there, he notes, you’ll often find a dozen or more barking, bawling sea lions holed up in the darkness, resting on an invisible rocky beach.
“Sometimes people are freaked out, but most of the time they’re just speechless,” says Cunningham. “It’s hard to describe because it’s such a surreal thing: to be in a pitch-black chamber, with barking sea lions, under an island. Some people want to stay for a long, long time.”

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