Seal at Shaw's

[Jake]

I can confirm this as well. There seems to be one individual in particular that has learned to hunt with divers. I've experienced it on my last two dives there, and one of my regular buddies encountered it a night or two before my second encounter.

Interestingly enough, I was on the Magician this past Saturday night for an overnight lobster run. The largest harbor seal I've ever seen scared the bejusus out of me at Isthmus reef when it came after me for the same assistance. It didn't stick around for too long, as the Magician's lights provided more than enough light for him to hunt on his own for the most part.

I feel bad that I'm "hunting" when I don't mean to be hunting, but I still consider myself lucky to have witnessed these things.

 

[riguerin]

It's actually a fairly common occurrence on night dives throughout Laguna Beach. The local harbor seal population has become quite adept at seeking out divers and using their lights to hunt by.

In fact, we've had multiple seals simultaneously follow us on night dives at Shaw's. We've been joined by different seals on recent night dives at N. Crescent, Deadman's, Shaw's, Diver's Cove/Fisherman's Cove ... the most recent one was on the wreck of the Foss 125.

To the best of my knowledge, there's a least 4 different seals that we routinely encounter ... two are easily identifiable by an orange tag in the hind flipper.

 

[Codyjp]

I was accompanied by a seal lion on one of my last night dives at crescent. It seemed to enjoy the 10W 'beam of death' that i had in my hand. I sorta felt bad.