Here comes the Galapagos wildlife. These are sea lion photos, taken on different islands. They don’t need much explanation. We saw hundreds of sea lions. We walked right up to them and they mostly ignored us.

This sea lion is one that didn’t ignore us. Our guide warned us to be careful around a “beachmaster”. A beachmaster is a dominant male that dominates a beach or part of a beach. I wasn’t sure how I would know when I was near a beachmaster but after seeing this guy, I knew. This guy chased us off the beach. It was easy to outrun (out-walk actually) him as they don’t move that fast on land. We did, however, encounter quite a few sea lions while snorkeling and that’s a different story.

Most of our tour group wasn’t much for snorkeling. The only two people who snorkeled at every opportunity were Vicky and me. One day, we went snorkeling off a beach, just the two of us. We had been warned that sea lions had attacked two snorkelers the prior week, one of them requiring stitches on the wound. They probably didn’t attack so much as protect. We were told to be wary of getting between a mother and cub or near a beachmaster. But when you are snorkeling, you can’t see much or know if you are between a mother and cub. Most of the time, it was fun to be around the sea lions as they would swim by and hit our flippers. Anyway, Vicky stayed close to shore and I headed out to sea along a rock spit. I was out about 100 yards from shore when I saw something sticking out from a rock on the ocean floor, about twelve feet below. I was treading water, waiting to see what would come out. It looked like a shark. All of a sudden, I felt something big and rubbery between my legs and “Bang”, I was face to face and nose to nose with a sea lion. It scared the daylights out of me. I immediately headed in to shore. What is even more amazing was that the people on shore claimed to have heard me yell, “Oh Sh*t” – from 100 yards out to sea, through my snorkel!!