Sunset Cliffs Sea Caves ♦

November 16, 2017 tarannosaurus

Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Southern California → San Diego Area → San Diego Coast → Sunset Cliffs Sea Caves

♦ Intrepid Top Pick!

Location: Sunset Cliffs, central coastal San Diego

Time Required: 2-3 hours

Red Tape/Notes: Best/easiest access will be when the tides are very low (0 to negative low tide – you can check tide tables here), and when the seas are calm (0-3 feet – you can check the wave/surf report here). You’ll still likely be getting wet up to your knees in some areas. Highly recommend wearing shoes; going barefoot will just make you really slow and produce a high likelihood of minor injury in the form of cuts and stubbed toes.

What’s Nearby?: Balboa Park Archery Range, Ruby E Wreck Dive, Pappy’s Point Sea Caves

*Please note that this post does not include the locally famous “Smuggler’s Cave” or “Rum Runner’s Cave” which is covered under the separate Pappy’s Point Sea Caves post.

We had heard about sea caves at Sunset Cliffs, but we also knew many of them had been sealed off, and we weren’t sure if there was anything interesting left to access. Luckily, our favorite site, ropewiki, has the Sunset Cliffs Sea Cave survey map posted, so when the conditions were good and we had a free afternoon, we took the survey map, shoved my camera in a waterproof bag, and headed down to Sunset Cliffs to see what we could find. What we ended up having was a truly delightful afternoon! We explored further south than shown on the survey map, and there are no accessible caves in the region we explored. However, virtually all the caves shown in the map linked above are still open. We started around the midway point of the map, reaching the bottom of the cliffs using an access trail in the rock (mainly used by surfers) above Little Blowhole Cave; if you head out the peninsula (notable because of the little fenced area around the Little Blowhole) the trail will take you down natural stone steps to a ledge that you can walk along in low tide, and then you’ll have some rockhopping and/or a shallow wade to the shoreline. We went south past Big Blowhole Cave all the way to Seaweed Cave (be forewarned that it’s really stinky inside), then worked our way back north, obviously stopping to soak in the views and take pictures from Big Blowhole Cave, and using the Little Blowhole tunnel cave to cross to the other side of the access peninsula while staying relatively dry. From there all the caves are accessible and shown on the map. This is a super fun little excursion with beautiful views.