Relaxing with our lunch near the harbor entrance at Moss Landing, the noisiest thing we could hear (apart from the foghorn on the entrance markers) was the sound of sea lions. There was a steady stream of their barking so we were looking around to see where they were. There was a pontoon jetty near the highway that was the source of the noise with a lot of them lying on it and sunbathing. We figured this had to be worth a visit before we left.
A while later we drove around to the location of the jetty and took a look at the gathering. This was not just a few sea lions. There were tons of them. There was nowhere near enough space for them all so they were piled up on top of each other. It was quite a sight. Several deep they were stacked across the dock. As new ones would leap out of the water, they would land on those already there and try to make their way to their preferred spot. All of this would arouse the ire of whoever they were walking on so barks and bites would be thrown around with abandon. It seemed quite a perilous voyage. Getting out at all wasn’t easy since there was no space to gain any purchase initially so, if the first leap wasn’t good enough, the chances were you would be “helped” back into the water.
It was hard to work out where the preferable location was. It appeared that the water’s edge was better since the sea lions there would periodically drop their heads into the water to cool off and blow some bubbles. We guessed that made this the best place to be but it was hard to tell. Some of the others on the edge were almost totally buried by their neighbors and that didn’t look to appealing. Whichever way it works, it was obviously the place to be if you were a local sea lion.
This is the cruise ship that our family had been traveling on when they arrived in Vancouver. It was heading back out the same day and we watched it leave port and head out. As it was turning to head back to the open sea, one of the local Otter floatplanes was making its approach to land (or whatever the correct word is when it is water rather than land). It passed in front of the ship. Both vessels are comfortable in the water but one is on a rather different scale than the other.
