Sea Lions

One of my favourite things about the Galapagos Islands are the sea lions (or lobos marinos - sea wolves - in Spanish).  They are certainly ubiquitous on San Cristobal Island... and not only on the beaches and natural spaces.  It's not uncommon to look up from reading your book or having a nap on a bench on the boardwalk to see you're actually sharing your bench with a sea lion pup...

... or to gaze out into the turquoise waters from the jetty to see a sea lion floating along, basking in the sun...

... or vying for position on the jetty steps...

... and you know you're in a strange place when you go for a walk downtown, only to find yourself sharing the street with a sea lion as she saunters down the main drag!

The best place to interact with the sea lions however, is, wherelse, but "Sea Lion Island" (Isla Lobos), just off the west coast of the main island of San Cristobal.  Here you can snorkel with the sea lions and see them dipping and diving and summer-saulting... and have so much fun playing with them and soaking up their bubble-kisses!

Yesterday I spent an hour playing 'fetch' with a pair of lobos... they were playing just the two of them and I was hanging back smiling and watching, taking pictures... and then... you'll never believe it... they invited me to join in on their game!!!  No kidding!  They had been rolling around together passing a stolen dried sea cucumber between them, and kept getting closer to me, and although I was trying to keep my distance, they got so close as to touch me!  Then the one that I had been playing summersaulting with and had been giving me bubble kisses earlier, set the sea cucumber down on the sand and looked up forlornly as if he were in desperate need of a playmate... then motioned for me to pick it up... so I did!  I mimicked their play, then tossed it back to them... and this back-and-forth exchange went on and on!  What fun with these intelligent beings!

I've seen them taunting sting rays and marine iguanas in the past as well... It's obvious that the interaction was not to harm them, but just in play!

Last month at Isla Lobos we experienced an interesting stage during the sea lion lifecycle... for several weeks after the pups had been born the big daddy macho kept them all corralled in the area I call the 'nursery'.  Then one day, they were allowed out to play... and they were the at the cutest stage ever!