I have an underwater camera and am going to hop in with some sealions to get some pics/vid.I know divers do it lots with nothing but some curious nips.Any idea on free diving with them at the colonies? Aka beside a long boom.I have seen the males get pretty territorial.
Kelly-- be careful. I dove professionally for a number of years and had many encounters with sealions and seals. They are immensely curious and you have hit it right about the males being territorial.
The females will approach at a reasonable speed-- appearing out of nowhere. They often stop 4-5 ft away and stare at you. The eyes look as big as dinner plates underwater. Quite neat really. The males however are another matter. They will charge you at high speed and veer off at the last minute. It can be scary as hell. They also seem to delight in coming at you from behind too. Considering the sheer size of a big bull, you have to respect them. Just imaging if you got hit by 1000lbs underwater!!!! I dont know of any divers that have been injured by sealions in BC... but who would want to be the first!!???
I dont see freediving with them being very dangerous. If they were mating and you were in the middle of the colony then maybe to much risk. The only thing i dont like is that its about 100ft of water and your not on tanks so a bit earie not having the comfort of bottom or air.
That said I wouldnt free dive with feeding orcas... Resident or not.
Kelly years ago I did some underwater video. You need very clear water to make it worth your while. We mostly don’t get that kind of water here unless it is winter. The gear we used in the Bahamas was 8mm and Hi8 cameras and it had special filters to remove some of the blue/green. We were video taping shark dives for Stuart Cove http://www.stuartcove.com/. There was a lengthy process we went through to get the gear cleaned and prepared for each dive. If you are serious about trying this you may want to start by doing a swim down one of the local rivers. Try videoing when the salmon are migrating. It might look a lot better on tape. You may not even need a lens filter in the fresh. It would be great practice. You may want to have a buddy along to keep you out of trouble as looking in the viewfinder is not the same as seeing all around. There are a few members here that do swims and one of them may show you the ropes. If your camera survives this and if you find you are still keen, a good next step would be to get your PADI and then try your video taping while on SCUBA and a dry suit. As for videoing seals… I don’t want to tell you where to draw the line but I thought we were not allowed to approach the wild life. Something to do with ensuring the safety of the animals and us. I don’t keep up with the technology anymore and I don’t YouTube, but there might be some videos that will show you the quality that you can expect for our local conditions. Personal I would rather video sharks then video a seal. I would feel safer in a controlled dive then jumping off the boat and hoping for the best. With age comes wisdom.
GLG I have my PADI and easy access to full gear but enjoy freediving more.The camera is a simple digital without filters but am thinking about borrowing a buddies higherend camera.The vis is nothing like down south but its been pretty good the last few weeks with 30ft which i should be more than enough. Heres a pic below taken in about 50ft vis.There is laws against harrassment but often there are groups in the water and they seem more than curious.There will be two guys in the water and one will likely be on air. Also below is a video of guys diving a colony off hornby.
Great vid.... but the guy sticking his fingers in the lions mouth is nuts! My diving partner had one of his fingers dislocated and the end bitten off by a SEAL ( he was feeding it abs , during the days when there were abs to be had)
They are wild animals.... no matter how you look at it. It might be fun to do, however.... wild is wild and it is dangerous.... they will eat you!!!....lol.
They are wild animals.... no matter how you look at it. It might be fun to do, however.... wild is wild and it is dangerous.... they will eat you!!!....lol.
As a dedicated surfer from 1973 'til 1989 I spent lots of time in the water and often with sealions. Every Spring a bunch of bachelor bulls would show up at Jordan River, where I lived, and sometimes they'd screw around with you by surfing inside the same wave you were surfing on. I watched Bruce Atkey ride a nice wave with a sealion riding along inside it one day at Sewers, and when the sealion popped out of the wave just ahead of Bruce you've never seen a more surprised guy in all your life. To his credit he (Bruce) didn't crap in his wetsuit, but it was close.
Lots of times they'd rear up and bark at you so we'd just sit tall on our boards and bark back.
They are great surfers and I often watched them in the rivermouth there, sometimes backlit by the setting sun too. Really neat sight.
That is a great video and interesting because those Sea lions were so calm and passive compared to my dive on a colony ( by accident) many years ago off Nanaimo ( Mistaken Is.)when my buddy and I were surrounded by group Stellars . They all rocketed toward and around us at great speed ...and as another fellow mentioned on this thread, would veer off at the last second. They sped around us at very high speed and barked with mouth's full of bubbles spit out at us....it was a bit unnerving but I felt they weren't going to actually attack us....I felt we were just being warned. and were protecting their territory. One thing for sure is they all looked like big bulls with massive teeth...not like the much smaller docile Sealions in the video( probably mostly smaller females) At first I thought the animals in the vid were California Sea lions and not the Stellar because they looked alot smaller than the stellar we encountered. I could see later that they looked like small Stellar. I wouldn't recommend diving with territorial bulls like we did...but I'd dive in the situation depicted in the video ( less the hand in mouth or head in mouth ) I'm not quite that stupid
Survived! It was awful vis though maybe 5 ft. Didnt get any good underwater pics. They would rocket right past us. Mostly bulls aswell so that combined with the vis was intimidating. Ill throw some up later
Survived! It was awful vis though maybe 5 ft. Didnt get any good underwater pics. They would rocket right past us. Mostly bulls aswell so that combined with the vis was intimidating. Ill throw some up later
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