On a clear day the view from the headlands at the Sea Lions Cave visitors center is outstanding. But step too close to the edge and you'll get the woozies, maybe the wobblies, as you gaze down at fields of wavy green grass that plunge 300 feet to the blue Pacific churning and sloshing back-and-forth in a perpetual rolling ballet.
Look south to Florence eleven miles distant and watch the wide, empty beach recede into a misty horizon. Look north two miles and there, perched high on a bluff, is the beautiful Heceta Head Lighthouse, the most photographed and arguably most beautiful lighthouse on the Oregon Coast, though I'm not sure how that's measured. Then step in the elevator and plunge 208 feet down into the bowels of mother earth for the experience of a lifetime. Really. For a reasonable price of admission you'll be treated to the world's largest sea cave. It's not a gimmick or a circus trick, just nature hard at work carving out basalt rock one salty wave at a time. And yes, those are sea lions down there lounging about, rubbing blubber, yelping and multiplying, and stinking up the place.