Want to go on a super cool fun family underground adventure in the heart of downtown La Jolla just outside of San Diego? Well then you need to make a visit to the historic Cave Store on Coast Boulevard. The Cave Store offers a bunch of cool toys, gems and local items for sale but their biggest draw is the famous Sunny Jim Sea Cave.
This view shows the Sunny Jim Sea Cave's exterior from Coast Boulevard. The Cave is said to be the only sea cave accessible from land in the entire state of California. In 1902, Gustav Shultz hired two Chinese laborers to dig a tunnel down to the sea cave using only pick and shovel, the task took the two men two years to complete.
Several years after the tunnels completion, these steps were added to help adventurers make the journey down to the sea cave. This door is literally in the middle of the cave store when you first enter. You do have to pay to go down, adults are $5 and kids $3. We do have to give a huge shout out to the amazing employees at the Cave Store, they were more than helpful. We had our bob stroller with us and they were able to store it safely behind the desk for us while we descended. They could kind of tell Jake was a little scare to go down to the cave, so they gave him a free flashlight. How nice is that?!
The stairs are very steep through the cave and a little wet, so definitely watch your step and hold your children's hands. We saw a couple people take spills because they were going to fast.
A look back up the stairs gives you a better idea of how steep the narrow stairs really are but also shows off the extreme beauty of the hard work that went into digging this tunnel.
Jake felt so much better about this little adventure once he was given that flashlight. It really made a world of difference in his attitude about going down to the sea cave. Much respect to the awesome employees of the cave store. As you can see, Jake was having a great time.
Family photo a stranger helped us get when we finally got down into the sea cave. You can see the Nikon D750 hanging from my neck and the stranger used my Nikon D600 with my Nikon 20mm f1.8 with pop-up flash to take this photo.
Looking back towards the tunnel which brings you down to the Sunny Jim Sea Cave. You can see that over the past 100 years, many people have left their mark on the cave walls.
Geologists believe that from fossilized shell and water marks that the cave formed over a period of 200,000 years. Iodine contained in Kelp helped to make the pinkish purple hues on the walls while vegetable matter made the green colorings on the beautifully colored walls.
The Sunny Jim Sea Cave is a must-see and is actually listed in the Encyclopedia Americana as one of the "must" sights in Souther California. We tend to agree with the encyclopedia, this place is amazing. For more info visit cavestore.com.
