October 12, 2022 Part 1 of 3 Seals and Lighthouses - Oh My

(I decided to do a three part blog on today’s adventures.  We experienced A LOT today and I have many pictures so I decided to do three parts.  They are intertwined because of the close proximity of the Seal Lion Caves and the Heceta Lighthouse.)

We started today’s adventure with a journey to the Seal Lion Caves.

A little info:

“America’s largest sea cave, Sea Lion Caves is a privately owned wildlife preserve and bird sanctuary that is the year-round home of the Steller sea lion. Sea Lion Caves is not a zoo, so the protected marine animals come and go as they please. There are times when the sea lions leave the caves entirely, usually in the late fall. SLC plays an important part in Oregon’s Cape Perpetua Marine Reserve helping to protect the marine animals and their environment.

Sea Lion Caves Facts

• Cave Formed 25 million years ago
• Cave is made of Basalt Rock
• The largest Sea Cave in the America's
• Height: equivalent to a 12 story building
• Length of a football field
• Elevator access since 1961
• Discovered in 1880 by Captain William Cox
• The elevator capacity is twenty-three passengers
• The elevator descends a total of 208 feet
• The elevator speed is 250 feet per minute
• The elevator accommodates about 400 people per hour

The sea level portion of this cave and the sea cliff rocks just outside the cave have become, over the centuries, the only known mainland rookery (breeding area) and hauling area (wintering home) of the Stellar sea lion, and to lesser extent, the California sea lion. The high vault is also a natural resting place for fascinating sea birds. Sea Lion Caves is the largest sea grotto in America - comparable both in size and coloration to the famed Blue Grotto of Capri in the Mediterranean - and it is Nature's entertaining and educational exhibit of a wide variety of marine life.”

More information can be found here:

https://www.sealioncaves.com/cave.php

https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/sea_lion_caves/#.Y0tHD3bMJPY

We entered thru the gift shop and talked to the woman at the ticket counter.  Before she sold us the tickets, she told us the the seals were not in the cave right now.  They usually shelter there in late fall/winter.  However, there were some on the rocks outside of the cave.  Mating and birthing happens in the spring/summer so there are a lot less seals than there would be in the summer or winter. 

We still decided to go for it so we paid for tickets and made our way outside to the stairs to the trail to the elevator.

A description of the site:

Beautiful sculpture at the bottom of the stairs:

And the views… this is to the south:

To the north:

The cycle of life here:

If you look close, you can see the seal lions on the rocks in the middle of the picture:

Here they are – I have more in part 2:

We went down about 208’ in the elevator to the cave.  Here it is:

This cavern was HUGE.  I wish we were here when the seals were inside.

Info on the male seal lions:

The view from the bottom to the north view:

The north view:

The tide was starting to come in.  Those waves were powerful.

  

The view from the north window to the cave:

This was worth the trip – very impressive.  There was many exhibits plus a skeleton of the seal lions as well as the wildlife around the cave area.

Part two contains the seals so check it out.