Point a Kayak to Santa Cruz : Paddling Through Watery Caverns Is Unusual Way to Explore Channel Island

It was only a small crack in a cliff, but for those sitting precariously in their kayaks, staring wide-eyed into the black hole, it had a special significance.

“We call this the Room of Doom,” said Debbie Hazzard, a guide with the Santa Barbara kayaking company, Paddle Sports. “Yes,” she added with a smile, “it’s going to be a Hazzardous day.”

The cave’s triangular entrance was maybe four feet high before the tidal surge. It disappeared completely with each swell.

“We’re going in there ?” asked Kelli McGuire, 19, visiting her family from the East Coast.

Her apprehension was understandable. She had just flipped her kayak while sitting perfectly still.

“You go first,” she said to her father, Michael.

In he went, disappearing into a gurgling, dripping, dark chamber about the size of a large den.

After enjoying a few moments of solitude, eerie as it might have been, he emerged from a small exit immediately beneath a sheer, rocky cliff. He shot Kelli a glance and a smile, as if to wish her luck.

She waited for the water to drop, the entrance to appear, then began to paddle in. But she stalled in the opening, which closed quickly when a sudden surge caught her, flipping her kayak into the cave without a rider.

The Room of Doom had claimed its first victim.

Kelli swam out unscathed, though, suffering only mild embarrassment. A guide retrieved her kayak and she gave it another go. This time, she made it into the cave and let the other paddlers have their turns. In went Felicia Johnson and Sydney Roberts, Cindy Courtney and Vicky Harbison.

Sea lions popped their heads through thickets of kelp, and cormorants bobbed for fish. Gulls soared overhead.

The civilized world, though it was only 19 miles across the channel, seemed far away.

*

Given its proximity to the mainland and its unspoiled natural beauty, Santa Cruz Island--as part of the four-island Channel Islands National Park--has become a popular destination for hikers, campers and even hunters.

Through Ventura’s Island Packers, the concessionaire all companies and individuals must deal with to visit the east end of the island, a variety of trips are possible.

But perhaps the most unusual way to explore the largest of the Channel Islands--Santa Cruz is 22 miles long and up to six miles wide--is by kayak. Besides Paddle Sports, a half-dozen or so companies offer single- and multi-day trips here, all aboard Island Packer vessels.

There are more than 150 sea caves on the front side of Santa Cruz, among them Painted Cave, the world’s largest recorded sea cave, extending 1,227 feet into the western end of the island’s north side.

Some companies offer chartered trips to this cave, where paddlers use lights as they meander through an echo chamber that sometimes is occupied by barking sea lions.

Cavern Cave, visited when conditions permit during regular trips to the more accessible east end of the island--all but the east end of Santa Cruz Island is owned by the Nature Conservancy, and access is strictly limited--features two huge chambers and extends about 400 feet.

At night from Cavern Point above the cave, a popular destination for hikers, one can gaze at a sky lighted by thousands of stars.

By day, Santa Cruz Island resembles the coastal California of centuries ago.

Lush with grassy meadows, dotted with groves of trees and divided by two island-long mountain ranges that guard a huge central valley, the island is home to a variety of wild animals.

The island fox, a playful, curious creature not much bigger than a house cat, is a favorite among campers.

“They’re everywhere,” said Scott McGuire, manager of Paddle Sports. “I have long hair and on our overnight trips I like to sleep on the lawn [at Scorpion Ranch], and it’s not uncommon for me to wake up with them pulling on my hair.”

Spotted skunks are among the island critters that, because of years of isolation, have evolved much smaller than their mainland counterparts. When it comes to scent, though, they don’t just smell a little bit.

The Santa Cruz Island jay is indigenous to the island. But unlike the fox and skunk, the birds are one-third larger than mainland jays and have much thicker bills.

Sheep and pigs, now wild, were introduced by ranchers earlier this century and, despite the harm they cause to the fragile ecology of the island through grazing and rooting, are still among the more visible wildlife.

Before the sheep and pigs, before such explorers as Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and Sir Francis Drake, the Chumash Indians thrived in the region, both on the mainland and the island.

According to legend, the Chumash emerged on Santa Cruz Island from the seeds of a magic plant by the Earth goddess Hutash, who was married to the Sky Snake--our Milky Way. The Sky Snake, via lightning bolt, gave the Chumash fire, and they thrived to the point where there were too many of them on the island.

The noise bothered Hutash, who made a rainbow bridge and ordered some of the people to cross it to the mainland. Some made it, but others fell from the rainbow into the sea. Not wanting her children to drown, Hutash turned them into dolphins, and dolphins were forever considered brothers to the Chumash.

Legends notwithstanding, the island population of Chumash was believed to have climbed well into the thousands before an epidemic in the early 19th Century decimated the native population.

Missionaries removed the remaining Chumash and put them to work on mission lands.

Some people, however, believe the spirit of the Chumash is still in the air here. Others won’t go that far, but insist there is something magical about the 22-mile-long island.

“I’ve lived in the South Pacific, the Caribbean. . . . I’m a real island person, and I tell people that this seems to be the farthest away you can get for the least amount of money and for the least amount of time [spent traveling],” said Lisa Rice, 31, a caretaker at Scorpion Ranch, a 19th-Century structure that was recently converted into a rustic bed-and-breakfast. “It’s just a real blessing to be out here.

“To wake up in the morning and to look out my window and see these two little foxes entwined and nipping at each other . . . to see a sheep who’s just dropped a new lamb, and the little baby is, like, barely standing up. . . .

“You even get sensitive to things like the tide. You get back to the mainland and people don’t even know what phase the moon’s in.”

*

Scott McGuire’s father, Michael, and his sister Kelli were well aware of what Santa Cruz had to offer on their recent trip with a half-dozen others--caves, each unique.

If the Room of Doom was the scariest, the Marge Simpson Slot was the funniest.

Looking through the cave from a distance, one sees a giant, near-perfect profile of the tall-haired character from the popular animated TV show.

“I laugh every time I see this one,” said guide Jim Surowiec, paddling to its entrance.

Getting safely in and out of Marge Simpson’s narrow head, however, is no laughing matter if there is any sort of swell. Kayakers have to wait for a drop in the swell and hope another doesn’t roll in before they make it through.

Thanks to some good timing, those in the Paddle Sports group--Kelli McGuire included--paddled in and out of Marge Simpson’s head without any serious problems.

At another large cave, the paddlers could look but not enter. There were maybe half a dozen sea lions resting on a dark, sandy beach at the back of the cave. One came out to greet the paddlers, popping up and twitching its whiskers before slipping out of sight.

Hazzard instructed the group to move on to another large cave in a group of rocks about 100 yards from shore.

Courtney quickly dubbed this one the Toilet Bowl because of the loud whooshing sound it made when the swells rolled through.

Like sacrificial goldfish, she and the others paddled in and, one by one, were swished around and flushed out the other side.

A Hazzardous day indeed.