CIO offers several types of trips. We splurged and took the EPIC Caves and Coves private tour, a privately guided day of kayaking and snorkeling at Santa Cruz Island. It was fantastic! Our day started with a wonderful breakfast. Ben was our guide, and he did a great job of getting us to some really cool locations. We’ve kayaked and snorkeled before, so we were able to skip some of the preliminary instruction that the group tours include. That was good because our boat to the island diverted several times to observe whales and dolphins, also very cool. We were lucky to have a perfect day — sunny, not too hot and smooth seas. We spent the first few hours kayaking in and between various sea caves. With smooth seas and little wind, the paddling was easy and the pace relaxed. We stopped at a small beach for lunch (also wonderful) and used that as our base for several hours of snorkeling. Snorkeling through the kelp was a unique and fun experience for us. We also snorkeled through several sea caves, which was also a fun first for us. Unfortunately, the wind had come up by the time we were kayaking back to meet the boat for Ventura, which made the trip back more work, but the fun day was well worth the moderate work at the end.
One suggestion. We did this trip on Monday, so the guides were coming out on the boat to the island with us. For the rest of the days that they are working, I think that they stay on the island, which means that they may have the setup for the day done before you arrive. Again, no experience here, but that may get you onto the water a bit faster.