Sea Lion Management

You can’t spend any time in Wreck Bay on San Cristóbal without seeing sea lions.  If you are on a boat you might become a bit more acquainted with them than you like.  In addition to rocks and beaches, they really like to sleep on boats.  Most of the local boats in the harbor have barbed wire on the transom and gunwales to keep the critters off.  Those without it become sleeping havens for as many sea lions can see fit to squirm on board.

Sea Lions seem to spend a lot of time sleeping (the older ones) and playing (the younger ones).  Seemingly at some point they also actually go out and fish a bit and work for a living but you’d never guess it watching them sleeping on the rocks or body surfing the waves.

Territory and PROPRIETY

They also seem to have a bit of territoriality about them.  Smaller sea lions looking for a space to sleep or move will get shouted down by larger ones and chased off.  I had a bit of experience with this which we caught some pictures of.

The walkway in the gallery below stretches out and around a large enclosed tide pool (more on that later) and is a nice place to observe sea lions and other water life.  The problem is that the sea lions also like to sleep there.  It is possible to start walking out on the promenade and find yourself blocked by a sea lion that has decided that she too would like to stroll there.

This happened to us, with a couple of sea lions walking out in the path ahead of us.  One female in particular stopped right before a spot where the path widens and there are benches to sit, just sort of waiting.  I decided to sit.  Instantly the sea lion perked up and started barking at me; then she charged straight at me and the seat I was on.

I jumped up and moved off the bench a few feet away, while the grouchy sea lion immediately quieted slid under the bench and parked herself.  It was immediately obvious that I’d somehow offended her by sitting on the bench.  She didn’t care one bit that I was standing five feet away so long as I was off her bench.  To test her I sat on the other bench, opposite her.  She quietly lay under HER bench in the shade and went to sleep without a care.

My working theory is that once they’ve staked out a claim they do their best to keep it unless another sea lion takes it from them.  So this female that I encountered didn’t care about my presence per se until I intruded on the spot she’d been holding and defending.  There are ramifications of this for boaters…

Visitation

Sea lions in the harbor are frequent visitors to the boats.  Boats by their nature (creating shade and shelter) attract fish around them when stopped.  This, along with their natural curiosity and a constant hunt for a place to sleep brings them among the boats quite regularly.

When they are around the boats they are obviously very in tune and aware of the people on the boats, the look at you and watch you.  they also play, you can see them racing around the anchor chain and hear them blowing bubbles against the hull.  Because of the water taxis we left two fenders in permanent position on either side of the gates through the life lines.  The sea lions seemed to take amusement at bumping these around as part of their play as well.

There was some concern that we might have a sleeper take up residence on our swim platform, but we thought we’d be OK as there is a ladder in the middle that might make it uncomfortable and it wasn’t that big.  Some friends of ours with more inviting sleeping spaces on their transoms had to repel boarders several times in one night.  But we’d been OK.

One night around 4:00 am we awoke from a dead sleep hearing noise…a series of loud sneezes it sounded like.  From spending lots of time watching the sea lions we knew that they did a fair amount of sneezing and coughing when at rest on the shore.  This particular brace of sneezes sounded like it was practically in the cabin with us.  I grabbed a flashlight and went upstairs to evict our new tenant, presumably from the swim platform.

Imagine instead my surprise to find a good-sized female sea lion stretched out to sleep right on the aft deck.  She was laying about five feet from the open hatch to our cabin – no wonder it sounded like the sneezes were almost in bed with us!

The two of us proceeded to have a polite, if loud, discussion about the appropriateness of her sleeping on my back deck.  She decided she’d had enough of my high-volume logic and attempted to exit by climbing into the dinghy on the davits.  Not good!  They aren’t supposed to hold the weight of a person in them, never mind a squirming panicked sea lion!  She quickly figured out that the dinghy, suspended loosely from the davits and rocking wildly, was NOT a comfortable place to be either and abandoned that course of escape and came back to the deck, finally slipping over the back and out.

We figured that the life lines had acted as a deterrent, the sea lions could not board without hitting them which perhaps gave them some discomfort in terms of having a quick exit path from their illicit sleeping spots.  That day we had rearranged the dinghies, patching a leak in the inflatable and moving it from the foredeck passage location to its normal spot in the davits.  We had forgotten to close the gates across the stern of the boat, leaving an open space for the inquisitive sea lions to wiggle up to the deck without opposition.

Truthfully a sea lion sleeping on the swim platform wouldn’t bother me that much.  They are cute and largely harmless and it is not such a big area that they can make a big mess of it.  But the deck is Right Out as a sleeping spot!  The last thing I need is a sea lion staking a claim, visions of me on the deck at night in my underwear with a flashlight challenging a sea lion that is defending her spot instead of challenging me for mine is not something I care to contemplate.  The gate stays closed at night!

Sailing Companions

Will was surprised to find that when he took the Portland Pudgy out for a sail not only were the local water taxi drivers interested and impressed by the boat, but so were the sea lions!

A few young sea lions in the bay were just fascinated by this little sail boat, which I suppose is something they don’t see too often.  One pair spent forty five minutes with Will playing in his wake and his bow wave, following him around the harbor and “porpoising” in front of him, jumping and splashing around.

It wasn’t a fluke, when both kids went for a sail the next day they again had company.  They captured some of it on video; I will upload it when I’ve got a better connection some day.