Sea lion

Sea Lion Video

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Here’s the sea lion video :-)

I shoot these videos with a GoPro attached to the top of my camera rig, so the footage I get is very much secondary to the stills I’m taking. I hardly ever frame up for the video shots, I get good footage only if the camera happens to be pointing in the right direction while I’m taking the still. Consequently I’m often struggling to find enough footage when I put the videos together - but not this time.

Sea lions are so playful, inquisitive & cheeky that it was impossible not to get lots of great footage. I could have made the video 20 minutes long easily. At times their behaviour was so extrovert towards the diver that it’s impossible not to come to the conclusion they were just plain showing off!

An example was when one juvenile picked up a shell in front of me. She would take it up to the surface, drop it, let it gently sink down & swoop in, catch it in her mouth & repeat the process. She did this about 10 times, often leaving it to the last second before the shell hit the sea floor before zooming in & taking it. She was showing me just how agile & coordinated she was - it seemed to me that it was all done to impress me.

Now I know an animal behaviourist would explain the real reason & I’m sure it had nothing to do with me at all - but I don’t want to know. I think I made a connection with these incredible animals many times in the week & that’s how I want to leave it. To me it was one of the most special trips of my diving career to date. Happy days.

Photographing the Sea Lions of La Paz

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Last November I visited Mexico, principally to photograph the sea lion colony which lives on the small outcrop of rock known as Los Islotes, an hour’s boat ride from Baja California Sur's capital of La Paz. Sea lions are friendly, inquisitive animals that often interact with divers. They also make great photographic subjects, offering opportunities ranging from super cute pups, mock fighting of juveniles and territorial behaviour of the bulls.

This image falls into the super cute group & was taken in a small cave the pups use as a playground, presumably keeping out of the way of the more boisterous juveniles. It was quite a small cave, probably only 3m x 2m inside - I found I could surface & just get my head above water before hitting the roof. There must have been around 20 pups playing inside & they were very inquisitive of their new visitor. They pulled my fins, mask, air hose - anything they could get hold of. It was quite claustrophobic with only enough room for one person inside, plus it was obviously dark. Some divers found it a bit too much, particularly when the sea lions started play-biting (think a small puppy’s bite), but I was ok & visited at least 5 or 6 times over the week. I’ve got several favourite images & this is one of them - in addition to the cute look on his face I also love the colour tones.

I’ll post more images over the next few days, plus I’m going to start pulling the video together. I’ve got a lot of footage which will mean it’ll not be a quick job, but I’m genuinely looking forward to looking through it.