Rob Wilks
Contributor
Sunday morning was beautiful. Stillwater lived up to its name for sure. My buddy and I were hoping for a decent dive of ok viz compared to the soup plaguing the bay. We decided our dive plan and got geared up, slipped into the water excited about the dive we were fantasizing about. Camera ready and stoked to be in the water...
Then we saw several cute harbor seals following us... as they do... beautiful faces... cute spots... Then I saw the little buggers eyes...
Nothing but pure intention upon their minds, clearly.â One got close, then closer, then really fricken close with her mouth wide open laying right on top of me... That was the first pass. My buddy didnt see it, though I quickly apprised him of my experience. Soon after, he got to enjoy the same thing. Obviously there were pups around, though I didn't see any. This happened a couple of times and then I decided to thumb the dive. This was all on the surface swim, we didn't even descend. I didn't need overly aggressive marine mammals tormenting me at depth. On the way back in it got worse. They didn't leave us alone. These relentless little critters then latched themselves to my fins and tried to rip them off my feet, or so it felt. One got so close to my face, mouth wide open, a had to slap it away. They crawled on my buddies back and mouthed his head, then one latched onto his arm for a moment, though didn't break the skin. We were charged about 5-6 times each in a 10-15 minute time frame. They could have done a lot of damage, though they were just driving us off. It worked...
I waved some hunters over and asked them to paddle us back to shore, making us look a lot bigger, Didn't get there names, though they were a crew from Half Moon Bay. They got us to shore in short order. Thanks guys, hope you had a bountiful day.
I have never experienced Seals in this fashion. I've put a lot of time in ocean and this takes the cake so far.
So... If you are thinking of shore diving Stillwater any time soon, be ready. A freaky experience, though fascinating at the same time. Ill be using my boat there from now on...
Happy diving!
---------- Post added April 21st, 2013 at 09:53 PM ----------
The hunters were on kayaks BTW...
Then we saw several cute harbor seals following us... as they do... beautiful faces... cute spots... Then I saw the little buggers eyes...
Nothing but pure intention upon their minds, clearly.â One got close, then closer, then really fricken close with her mouth wide open laying right on top of me... That was the first pass. My buddy didnt see it, though I quickly apprised him of my experience. Soon after, he got to enjoy the same thing. Obviously there were pups around, though I didn't see any. This happened a couple of times and then I decided to thumb the dive. This was all on the surface swim, we didn't even descend. I didn't need overly aggressive marine mammals tormenting me at depth. On the way back in it got worse. They didn't leave us alone. These relentless little critters then latched themselves to my fins and tried to rip them off my feet, or so it felt. One got so close to my face, mouth wide open, a had to slap it away. They crawled on my buddies back and mouthed his head, then one latched onto his arm for a moment, though didn't break the skin. We were charged about 5-6 times each in a 10-15 minute time frame. They could have done a lot of damage, though they were just driving us off. It worked...
I waved some hunters over and asked them to paddle us back to shore, making us look a lot bigger, Didn't get there names, though they were a crew from Half Moon Bay. They got us to shore in short order. Thanks guys, hope you had a bountiful day.
I have never experienced Seals in this fashion. I've put a lot of time in ocean and this takes the cake so far.
So... If you are thinking of shore diving Stillwater any time soon, be ready. A freaky experience, though fascinating at the same time. Ill be using my boat there from now on...
Happy diving!
---------- Post added April 21st, 2013 at 09:53 PM ----------
The hunters were on kayaks BTW...
