Kayaking with Kodiak's Sea Lions

With 18 hours of daylight, it is quite tempting to put the kayak in the water after a days' work. Go out and enjoy a calm paddle through the harbor. That is just what we did Tuesday night.

We found over 45 Sea Lions snoozing on an island the city made for them...it keeps them off the boat docks. There they were: 45 snoozing Sea Lions. Many looked quite young, 1 to 4 year olds. But an old one, nearly 1,000 pounder was there too taking a nap.




A passing fishing boat woke a few of the adults at both ends of the sleeping pack. One gave a call, and all at once, 20 of them jumped into the water. We paddled as fast as we could to get out of their way. They were underwater for about 3 minutes, so we had no idea where they were. Suddenly they started to come up for air. Fortunately, by then we were over 20 yards away form where they came up.

After watching them for a while, we started comfortably paddling back in. I had accidently left my video camera turned on as we paddled away. So you can hear what we talked about. Only when we landed did we realize that half of them had been following us on our trip back and were just behind us. I think they made it some sort of training excercise for the young ones.


So, if you have 4 minutes to waste, take a gander at our Tuesday's outing on the video above.

Where else can you go for a night outing and be among such creatures? Only in Kodiak!

(PS Wasn't this the music they played on the Titanic?)