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October 20, 2010
My Take on Diving Islas Coronado
On October 7, 2010 we boarded the Humbolt, owned and run by Waterhorse Charters out of San Diego, California. We have been out with them before back in March 2009 and had a fantastic experience. This time we’d be going to Islas Coronado on the first day of our trip, then to Wreck Alley the following two days. I’m going to write strictly about our second dive.
We had already made one dive at Islas Coronado and had moved the boat to another location. As we approached this dive site sealions were jumping off the island’s rocky shores in droves to come check us out. The boat captain, Ryan, gave us a briefing of what to expect to see in the vicinity surrounding the boat, including what was around the point. I pulled dive master Anita aside and asked her where the sealion encounters were most likely to happen. She said they’d likely stay between the area under the boat and the shoreline.
I was too interested in the sealions to really care about what was around the corner, so I cleared it with Conrad that we’d stay in the immediate area and play with the sealions as long as they’d hang around.
We entered the water, swam over towards the shore about ten feet or so, then we descended. The water was only about 15 feet deep in this area and it was quite rocky. We settled on the bottom and sat there waiting for action. Luckily, we were not disappointed, as about 15 seconds later here came a sealion! He circled around us and left. He left to go tell his friends because he and two more swam by, then were gone as quickly as they appeared. Within seconds the numbers multiplied to probably eight, then ten, then well over a dozen sealions can over to entertain us. Before long there were so many sealions we couldn’t even see each other!
The sealions swam, circled, stared, barked, darted, and even got curious and tried to mouth our equipment. We spend a solid hour being amazingly entertained by these sealions. It was an experience Conrad nor I will ever forget. This is not the first time I’ve had this type of experience with sealions, and I dearly hope it won’t be the last. Each encounter is awesome and unique. Each encounter is worth writing about and sharing with others. I recently entered a film in a film festival and, needless to say, I included several clips of sealion encounters in the film!
I had plenty of air, that day, to stay underwater for another hour or so, but that wouldn’t have been fair for everyone else who was already on the boat. Besides, had we stayed any longer we’d likely have missed the dolphin stampede that crossed our wake on the way back in and I’m sure we wouldn’t have gotten to see the three blue whales that were feeding on the krill.
Posted by Carol at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)