The Rookery
Santa Barbara Island, CA off of the Sundiver Boat

Dove with Nick

In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 1000 psi
Max depth: 25 feet
Waves: Insignificant and not much current here
Visibility: 30 feet
Water Temperature: Cold
Total Bottom Time: 60 minutes
Notable Event: Annoyed by hundreds of Sea Lions

From what I understand, this is usually reserved for the last dive since it’s so shallow.

There’s a lot more kelp than the last dive and literally tons of sea lions.

Basically, all we did was screw around with the sea lions – I believe sea lions have ears and seals don’t.

This was a relatively shallow dive – 25 feet at the most.

We were constantly bombarded with sea lions.

They swam right toward us and then turned away at the last second.

Nick almost gets hit by a sea lion.

Sea Lions swap spit.

Reconnaissance scouts the attack target.

Nick is dive bombed by vicious sea lions.

A nearby diver is almost dealt a fatal blow by a dive bombing sea lion.

We surfaced to try and swim back to the boat and escape…

…but the sea lions blocked our surface exit.

The Sea Lions continued to attack…

Nick found that by giving a few blasts of air on his BCD jacket, the noise would scare them away.

We barely escaped death!

The sea lions are pretty much fearless.

I swear they were actually posing for some of the pictures.

Nick had trouble equalizing toward the end.

Going back to the boat, I noticed that most of the divers were very close to the boat still – basically entertaining themselves with the sea lions.

This apparently is a marine preserve.

According to the captain, “you can’t even take sand here.”