Swimming with Sea Lions!

I literally just stepped off the plane from Ecuador and I have a lot to catch up on. I'm so grateful to have made it to the Top 10, but I haven't had much time to market myself or my blog, since I was away and had access to internet only one time in those 10 days, since I went to pretty remote locations with nothing around but sea lions and sharks and the gorgeous scenery!!

Thank you to all the followers that logged on in the 10 minutes I had in Ecuador when I wasn't sailing to follow my blog. You are all so wonderful for taking the time to check this out!

Santa Fe
Early in the AM, we had a wet landing and landed on another sea lion beach. This scenery was incredible. It seems as though each island is different and more beautiful than the next. Holy stick fields grew in the background with cacti in the midst. Land iguanas who have lost their ability to climb trees wait under the cactus trees for a cactus pad to fall. I decided to have some fun and pose like an iguana waiting for a pad to fall. On the path, it was difficult not to run into sea lions, but they didn't seem to mind us stepping over them. After our lovely hike, we jumped into our wet suits and took pangas out to a bay to swim. Not more than 5 minutes in the water and I felt a big tug at my flippers, holding me back from swimming. I thought I had a flipper stuck in between some rocks, but when i looked back, I found it was a sea lion nipping at my flippers! Dozens of sea lions joined us-they were unbelievably playful. If I had a camera in my hand, they would come up and nip at my wrist or head butt the camera. They were so curious and adorable. Their eyes are so huge and they look more like puppies than lions. In Dutch, the actual translation is sea dog and I find it more appropriate.

It was so much fun to dive and twist and turn with them. It seemed that they were trying to teach me how to turn backwards and twist and they enjoyed playing with you more when you would behave like them. It was so interesting to see this happen inches from my face, every action was a delight--from their backflips to their torpedos forward. Sometimes if we blocked them too much they would actually jump over us!

I'm still astounded that I experienced something like this--I had seen sea lions in captivity, but I'd never seen this type of behavior, since it's hard to really see this type of playfulness when they're in a zoo and sleepy.

Check out the video to show you how playful they were!