We rapidly lose patience with our resident herd of animals. The sea lions colonising the boat are cute the first day, mildly annoying the second and unbearable the third. They snap at our ankles as we try to board the boat, fight each other, bray loudly during the night, shit everywhere and roll around in their own faeces, distributing it in a thin smear over the back steps on both sides. They are noisy buggers, sighing and heaving, coughing and spluttering, the boat shaking every time they reposition themselves. The most persistent one, a large male whom we name ‘Kevin’, lies burping on the bottom step, with two females in the bunk beds above him, and three others on the other side, one on each step. Kevin is particularly vicious when we try to board the boating, giving us lots of hostile honks. The final straw is Monday night when the herd decide to take over the boat entirely – they manage to climb the fence we’ve erected at the top of the steps and a large female starts hauling herself into the cockpit. She nearly falls down Sarah and Steve’s hatch, and we have to shout and clap loudly to get her to leave.
When we wake up Tuesday morning after a sleepless night of defending our territory and find the whole back of the boat covered in poo, we get serious about excluding them and erect a net on the starboard side and a layer of fenders on the port side to prevent them from getting onto the steps. It works for half a day, but Kevin is back before nightfall, lying across the net. We evict him again and stuff the netting with fenders, hoping that that will work and that we can finally leave the boat without fearing coming back to a sealion stuck halfway through a hatch (try explaining that to the Park Official, should he finally come to inspect).
It doesn’t really work – they come back the following night, choosing to lie on the second step up to avoid the fenders and netting. At 5:30 in the morning I am awakened by Kevin trying to break through to the cockpit, and I get out to shout and clap him off. Ten minutes later I hear the braying of a little pup and see a small pup in the cockpit, at the table, ready for breakfast. Sarah and Matias get up to shoo her off, and we up our defences by stuffing some more fenders on the steps.
The night after we have four – Kevin on one side, rolling around in his own excrement one step above our elaborate defense line of fenders and netting, and three females on the other side. David gets up at one point in the night to fight them off, but they quickly come back, and in the morning Matias and I repeat the exercise. It seems pointless to clean up after them, but we do it anyway, stepping onto the still warm steps to wash about a million short straight hairs into the sea along with copious amounts of urine and poo. A thin greasy brown film is left, which we don’t seem to be able to get rid off – perhaps once we exit the park we will attack it with some heavy duty cleaners…
Saying that, sealions are lovely when on their own turf. They lie around everywhere in town, and on all the adjoining beaches. They seem permanently exhausted, fast asleep on piers, jetties, benches, pavement, beaches and rocks – any place is a good place to snooze. We almost step on top of them on the beach – they look just like a dark shiny rock, and the kids jump high when they bark and snarl to warn us off.
Their fatigue disappears under water, which they glide through elegantly, a stream of bubbles trailing after them. On our last day in San Christobal we go snorkelling at a rocky beach just around the corner, and a small sealion comes over to say hello, nibbling at David’s fins, zooming up to Matias and Lukas, investigating us whilst tearing apart a jellyfish with its sharp teeth. They are absolutely wonderful to swim with, so interactive that as they come up to us, we have to pull back our hands and feet to comply with park rules and avoid touching them.
SV Bob The Cat 