Tales from the Logbook--A Mom Goes Adrift at Cocos Island

 

I am preparing a series of stories of people who find themselves adrift in the water.  The first story comes from an incident that occured in August 2002 whlile I was on the live aboard diveboat, the Undersea Hunter, in August 2002.  It is purely coincidental that this story appears on Mother's Day 2024.

To say that Cocos Island, Costa Rica, in the Pacific Ocean, is "isolated" is an understatement.  The island, designated  Cocos Island National Park, lies approximately 340 miles southwest of the Costa Rican mainland.  “Middle of nowhere” barely begins to describe this location. Just getting to the island required a 30+ hour boat ride from Punta Arenas on board Undersea Hunter—a top live-aboard dive boat.  I was traveling with a group organized by Brandon and Melissa Cole.  Our group claimed many of the available spaces on the boat; others took the rest.

I had prepared for the remoteness of the location by incorporating into my dive gear, in addition to the whistle permanently affixed to my buoyancy compensator, an extremely loud surface signaling device powered by the compressed air (from my tank), a bright green surface marker buoy, a flashing strobe light and a signal mirror.  I had considered a bright green dye marker pack, but the container could not sustain the pressure of deep water immersion without hemorrhaging the dye.

Diving Safety Briefing

The first predive briefing of the trip, held prior to our first dive, emphasized the conservation orientation of the operators at Cocos Island and what a privilege it was to dive in this unique marine wilderness.  (Only park personnel and scientific researchers are allowed on shore.) The “boat rules” include no intentional interaction with the fish, no feeding of fish, no manta riding, and no pulling the shark’s tail.  One would think these rules need not be explicitly stated given the conservation ethic of diving.  My observation of diver behaviors over the years is to the contrary.  When in doubt, point it out.

The second half of the briefing emphasized safety and the need to follow the diving protocols.  Divers were directed not to exceed the 130 foot depth limit.  The briefer noted that divers were responsible for knowing and not exceeding their individual “no decompression limits.  Other protocols emphasized the need to maintain visual contact with the underwater walls.  Also, since the dive spots are fairly deep, the divemaster highlighted the need to complete the safety stop for three minutes between 15 and 20 feet during ascent with one exception.

“No blue water diving!” the divemaster stressed. “If you cannot see the wall or if you are in a strong current; do not do the three-minute safety stop! Surface immediately,  inflate your bc and marker buoy and the tender will pick you up.  The current will carry you away from the island and the nearest landfall Is Antarctica.”  It is a lesson we learned later that day.

The Second Dive

Our second dive ended as a cautionary tale about diving in the current.  We planned to drop in on the southwest side of Isla Manuelita, and descend as a group along the step down slope to between 60 and 100 feet, while moving north.  The orientation to do that is to keep the wall on the right hand side. We would round the end of the islet and be picked up on the northeast side.

 

After a routine descent, the divers wedged themselves into a ledge along the wall to await the appearance of hammerhead sharks.  I ascended a bit to address an issue and found myself surrounded by fish.  I could not get back to the main part of the group as I was up current of their location. Rather than fight against the current, I continued the dive.  I had done a number of drift dives over the years so I was comfortable doing so.  The current pushed me along the wall.   I am able to maintain visual contact with the wall.  I start my ascent upon reaching my “low air” tank pressure of 700 psi. After completing the three-minute safety stop, I surface.  The panga motored over to retrieve me, as the current kept me from swimming to it.  I am the first one on board. 

Mom goes adrifting

The group had spread out along the wall, with the photographers bringing up the rear.  As the panga retrieved the divers, a diver returned onboard without her buddy.  The buddy pair, a mother-daughter duo, is missing the mom.  The daughter reports that they were in a current as they ascended.  The mom was carried out into blue water and continued with the safety stop while the daughter surfaced.  She did not see her mother surface. 

A search immediately commenced.  We cruised along the current line looking for any sign of the diver, but we found nothing.  Visibility decreased as a squall line moved into the area.  The divemaster’s initial look of optimism at finding her quickly changed to one of consternation.  He alerts the mothership by radio to dispatch the second panga to join the search as soon as their divers are recovered.  The Park Ranger from the island joined the effort from his skiff. 

Time passed.  All eyes on our panga desperately scan the water for a sign of the diver.  We searched for what seems like an eternity moving back and forth along the current line.  Suddenly, the radio sounded.  The other tender reports they have recovered the diver on the surface.  We race over to their location, relieved that the mother is OK. 

Back on board the Undersea Hunter, the divemaster asked the mother what happened.  She replied, “since it was a deep dive, I felt making the safety stop for the three full minutes was very important.”  She insisted that nothing was wrong, seemed unfazed by the whole experience and appeared oblivious to how close she came to going missing.  After a discussion that focused on the critical importance of directly surfacing when in blue water, the incident is closed.  But, the lesson stayed with us for the rest of the dives.

Tales from the Logbook--DeLong Lake Cleanup

 

Anchorage, Alaska features a number of municipal parks with freshwater lakes.  Every year in May, once the winter snow has receded, a city-wide cleanup removes the litter detritus of winter along the streets and trails.  Later that month the annual Creek Cleanup does the same for the city’s urban streams.  No equivalent organized effort exists for the lakes.

In May 2009, at the behest of the Municipal Parks and Recreation Department, Jerry and Lisa Vandergriff organized a handful of divers to remove debris from DeLong Lake near Anchorage International Airport.  The dive was an effort to show that the problem of litter in the environment did not end at water’s edge. 

On Sunday, May 10, 2009, Mother’s Day, the divers assembled on the dock at DeLong Lake at 9 am. (The dock's location is indicated by the star on the map.) The winter ice had recently cleared from the 20 acre lake surface, but the water would still be a chilly 45 degrees F.  The poor visibility at the bottom of the lake, 0 to 5 feet, meant that only very experienced divers were taking part in this “muck dive.” We donned our drysuits and tanks, grabbed our mesh goody bags to bring up whatever we found that did not belong on the bottom and entered the water.

Each diver attempted to swim in a different direction following a compass heading to cover as much as the lake as possible.  I dropped to the bottom and started swimming vaguely aware of a nearby diver on a divergent course. 

The bottom was covered in a layer of decaying organic matter from leaves and tree limbs.  I stuck my hand in the layer and was up to my elbow in the muck without finding a hard bottom.  I did not find this surprising as they are the same conditions I encountered at the nearby Little Campbell Lake.  Hovering just above the layer, I swam along a compass course as a reference in the low horizontal visibility.  

I came across scattered piles of beer cans, bottles, and other debris.  The sites seemed to be randomly scattered with no discernable pattern.  I placed the debris and my mesh bag and moved along.  Upon using half my air supply, I turned to the left, swam about 25 feet and swam a reverse compass course inbound toward the dock.  The entire dive lasted about 45 minutes with a maximum depth of 16 feet.  The deepest part of the lake is reported to be about 22 feet.

Back on the dock, I emptied a half-full goody bag, separating the mostly recyclable aluminum from the disposable trash.  Jerry explained that the scattered piles of beer cans most likely marked the sites of ice fishing huts set up on the lake during the winter.  The fishermen disposed of their cans down the hole.

While I did see river otter and muskrat around the lake, I had no encounters underwater.  Of course, with the barely-able-to-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face visibility, the critters could have been putting on an underwater show nearby and I would not have seen it.  Nor did I see any of the fish that are stocked in the lake which include arctic char, salmon, and trout.

I have participated in a couple of water body cleanups over the years.  DeLong Lake is probably one of the more challenging ones.

"Happy Birthday" or "The Ask"

 

“Luke has a question to ask you,” his mother prodded as the scenery whizzed by heading north from San Diego’s downtown international airport to their home in Scripps Ranch.  I was in town to see my brother and his family on the way to a weekend of diving at Catalina Island in April 2014.

“O.K.” I responded looking at my soon to turn 12-year-old nephew riding in the back seat of the SUV with his grandmother.  “Go ahead and ask!”

“I want to learn to scuba dive,” he asked shyly.  I am not sure why he didn’t ask directly.  I guess I can be a bit intimidating to people, especially youngsters. 

“O.K.,” I responded and added, “you have a birthday coming up pretty soon and I will be happy to pay for the lessons and the personal equipment you need.  Of course, we have to find a dive shop in the area that will teach someone your age.  Some places may want you to be a little older.  Let me call around while I am in town and see what’s up.”

He seemed very pleased at the prospect.

Looking back on that moment a decade later, I am very happy that Luke asked the question.  He blossomed into a competent, enthusiastic diver and one of the best buddies a diving uncle could hope for, especially when he totes my gear.  Of the dozens of people I have dived with in the 1,000+ dives over 40 years, only Brandon Cole has more dives with me. 

 We experienced a two-year pause between the “ask” and the “do.”  I guess school, water polo, and other things kept pushing the “do” further down the list of immediacies.  Then, in the spring of 2016, he messaged me, “I am taking lessons this summer in July,”  I rearranged my travel schedule to lay over a few days in San Diego on the return trip from diving in the Cayman Islands.  The stars were aligning for Luke and me to make his first dives together.

A dive-shop-induced glitch in his training schedule nearly torpedoed that plan.  Quick action, a lot of cajoling, and intervention by the shop’s chief instructor got Luke’s open water dives back on schedule. 

Luke and I made his first post-open water certification dive off the dive boat Lois Ann in the Goblin Forest near Point Loma—an area of very thick kelp beds.  Luke learned the basics of boat diving that day.  He followed and led during our two dives.  He also acquired the skill of surface crawling through the elastic spaghetti of a kelp bed without getting entangled.   We followed that dive with lunch at Hodad’s in Ocean Beach. 

Our second boat a few days later was canceled due to insufficient passengers.  But, it all worked out. Luke played his first high school varsity water polo game that day.

Over the next eight years we completed 67 more dives together.  Our shared experiences include diving with mantas and whale sharks during our first trip to the Kona coast of Hawaii, spearfishing for invasive Roi on Maui, watching dolphins stoned on puffer fish venom behaving badly on a second trip to Kona, getting skunked trying to find Giant Sea Bass at Catalina, and wreck diving while helping eradicate lionfish on the coral reefs on two trips to Roatan, Honduras.  Topside, we hiked up a volcano that violently erupted a few weeks later, took in a lot of Hawaiian culture, watched every dive movie in my collection, and enjoyed the Caribbean tropics of Roatan.  I had a lot of fun and learned a lot along the way.  I recently transcribed my dive journals of our adventures—the text runs more than 80 pages.

I think the best insight I felt I provided to Luke scientific diving maxim, “any diver can stop any dive for any reason at any time.” To that  I added Lima’s Corollary,   “if you do call a dive and your dive buddy complains, it is time to find a new buddy.”  The extent to which he took that to heart was demonstrated on a recent dive in Roatan.  Back on the boat after our first dive, I noticed I have muffled hearing in my right ear.  I talked to Luke about the potential reverse block and that I will not make the next dive.  I started to offer Luke the opportunity to join up with other divers.  Before I can complete the sentence, he says “don’t even think about suggesting it, the buddy team stays together.  You would do the same for me.”  I silently give thanks for Luke's keeping the buddy pair intact.  Such above-and-beyond loyalty is rare.

I do believe that if not for a two year hiatus in our diving because of Covid 19 restrictions, we might have reached 100 dives!  A couple of the planned-but-never-started excursions include a dive trip up the California coast to show him locations that I dived, like my “happy places” such as the Anacapa Island landing cove and “Jim’s Reef” at Refugio State Beach.  I had also sketched a road trip down the Florida Keys to replicate one that Luke’s dad and I had done in 1996.  I guess lyrics from an old ABBA song sums up these “what might have beens”

What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned for us to go?
Well, some of that we did, but most we didn't
And why, I just don't know

 

Don Canestro Brings Underwater Hockey to UCSB

 

Sometime around in the late 1980s, UC Santa Barbara students discovered underwater hockey thanks to the arrival of Don Canestro on campus.  Don was working at the Marine Science Institute as a diver and research associate in subtidal marine ecology.  Don played competitive underwater hockey and was eager to organize the sport at UCSB.  Don was a talented waterman.

Underwater hockey is played using masks, fins, and snorkels.  A protective glove for the puck hand and waterpolo caps for ear protection is recommended but we never used them.There are usually six players on a side.  Each player carries a notched stick, about 11 inches long which is used to push a brass or lead plastic coated disk (the puck) weighing about 3 pounds along the bottom of the pool into the opposing team’s goal.  The rules do not allow contact between players.  The game is very fast paced, as shown in this Youtube Video.  keep in mind, this video is shot some years after we tried the activity at UCSB!

Once a week in the evening the players would meet Don at the WWII-era campus Olympic size pool.  He would review basic strategy and tactics, emphasizing that underwater hockey is a three dimensional game.  He related that team members were constantly descending and surfacing for air while trying to advance the puck or defend against the advance.  Advancing the puck involved handing off possession or passing the puck with a flick of the stick to a team mate.  An attack by the defenders for possession of the puck was as likely to come from above as it was from head on or the sides. 

After practicing our disk passing skills for 15 or 20 minutes, we would split into teams for scrimmage.  Play occurred in about 6 to 8 feet of water with the goal on either side of the 25 yard width pool.  The puck was placed in the center and the teams lined up on either side of the pool.  In his baritone voice Don would call “Black sticks ready? White sticks ready?  At “go” the fastest swimmers would descend rapidly sprinting toward the puck.  Once engaged, the other players would take up positions.  The game metabolically intense pace saw players on both sides breaking away, surfacing, taking a quick breath, and descending to get back into the game. 

I recall one play where I descended rapidly, feeling the pressure build in my ears to take the puck from a team mate.  I was kicking furiously moving the puck toward the goal twisting to shield the puck from the opposing attackers.  I could feel my lungs ache while my brain was screaming for air.  Just as I was about to break off one of my fellow players, John, came out of nowhere and took the puck.  He accelerated like a torpedo, broke through the defenders and scored.  It was something he did consistently at every scrimmage.  It seemed like that man was everywhere! 

John's aggressiveness came as a surprise because on the surface John was so mellow and laid back almost to the point of being catatonic.  In conversation, he spoke quietly with a slight drawl and called everyone “dude” regardless of gender.  John lost a fin on a night dive at Anacapa Island while buddied up with his girlfriend and getting back on the board as though nothing happened.  But he seemed genuinely surprised that no one had a spare fin to loan him.  Whenever I saw him on campus, he was wearing the same Baja blanket hoodie over faded Levi jeans.

Don was a patient teacher who I think really wanted to build a competitive team.  Everyone seemed to have fun playing, but we tended to regularly violate the no contact rule.  Some of the plays looked more like a rugby scrum.   While the game was a natural for spearfishers who had the breath hold capacity to really play, most participants were snorkelers rather than freedivers.  After a few months the number of participants dwindled to the point that it was tough to form teams and the practices stopped. 

It would be another decade or so before underwater hockey teams really began to flourish in California and nationwide.  I recall a team called the Beltway Bottom Feeders formed in Washington, D.C. in the late 1990s.  I thought about practicing with them when I was on assignment in Washington D.C. for six months in 2000, but since I did not have a car it was nearly impossible to get to their practices at George Mason University from my apartment in Falls Church.  Similarly, just before I moved to Alaska in early 2002 more teams seemed to be forming in Southern California.  Within a few years, regional and national tournaments became regularly scheduled events. Still, even today, whenever I mention underwater hockey to people II get the strangest side glances.

As I look over a listing of the dozens of teams in the United States, it appears that many are inactive.  The sport never really established itself at UCSB after Don's attempt.  I find this surprising given the rise of the popularity of freediving over the last decade and the area's reputation as an underwater sports center.

When I first moved to Alaska, I was a member of a dive club and inherited their underwater hockey gear when the club disbanded.  It seems that a few years before they had played on scuba.  I can’t imagine what that looked like.  The wood sticks are old and deteriorating with peeling black and white paint.  The puck is uncoated brass.  The set still hangs from a pegboard in my garage, kept more for nostalgia than for any practical purpose. 

In February 2014, I travelled to the remote Alaska Bush community of Galena on the Yukon River to teach a lifeguard course to local residents.  The community has a very nice 25-yard pool that is six feet at its deepest point.  I discovered a complete and nearly new set of UWH gear along with masks, fins, and snorkels in the pool equipment bins.  I was told by Sandy Scotten, the community’s aquatic director that the school district had purchased the equipment at the request of a physical education instructor.  He planned to organize UWH games as an aquatic activity for the high school students. The activity never really got up and running as the instructor left shortly after the equipment arrived.  Teacher turnover is very high in Bush communities.  Along those lines, the Alaska Boxing Academy in 2022 came into possession of a ring, practice gloves and other equipment when a boxing fitness scheme in Haines evaporated under similar circumstances.

I learned quite recently that Don Canestro passed away on November 9, 2018.  An obituary published on the American Academy of Underwater Sciences website[1] notes that

Don was diving with his friend Dan Richards, in Cambria California. When he surfaced near their kayak, he said he did not feel well, then passed out. Dan got him to shore, performed CPR, and arranged for a helicopter to take Don to the hospital, but Don, who had survived so much before, died from cardiac complications.

It is ironic that Don, a former Dive Safety Officer, died while diving. For so many years, he was the person others relied on because of his knowledge, expertise and prowess underwater. But it is fitting that Don’s last day was spent in the ocean. Don was a dedicated waterman: he ocean swam, surfed, free-dove, scuba dived, and played underwater hockey. He could recite Navy dive tables, rebuild a regulator, and captain a research vessel. And Don knew more about the ocean and its inhabitants than most marine biologists.”

If find that to be a fitting testament to the man who taught us underwater hockey.

---

[1] Don Canestro.  No date.  No attribution.  American Academy of Underwater Sciences.  https://www.aaus.org/Shared_Content/News_and_Announcemnts/Don_Canestro.aspx accessed on January 2, 2023.

Learning Buoyancy Control

 

Many divers strive for good buoyancy control.  Doing so enables a diver in full gear to effortlessly hover and efficiently swim through the water.  The graphic on the science of buoyancy indicates a number of factors that affect buoyancy.

I know instructors who slightly “overweight” their open water students to eliminate the up and down movement that many divers experience when first learning to dive.  Divers may equate being slightly “negative” to sink with good technique.  This practice results in divers dragging themselves along the bottom colliding with terrain as they move along or expending more effort than necessary. They figure adding a bit of air to the buoyancy compensator to “compensate” for a couple of pounds of excess weight is easier. 

Learning Buoyancy

Divers learn a rudimentary buoyancy check technique in the open water class.  Wearing full gear in the water, with the regulator in their mouth, the diver vents all the air out of the buoyancy compensator device (BCD), while slowly exhaling.  A properly weighted diver will sink ever so slightly ending up with the eyes at water level and rise to the starting point when inhaling.  If the diver sinks beyond that point, weight is reduced.  If the diver cannot sink to that point, additional weight is needed. 

This approach yields an approximate neutral buoyancy weight for the gear the diver wears during the check.  Different wetsuits, tanks, and other gear have unique buoyancy characteristics.  In the early 2010’s, my gear configuration went through a series of changes, new drysuit, undergarment, and backplate and wing BCD.  Each addition required changes to the weight I used and affected my underwater streamlining.  It took a couple of dives to make everything just right. 

But Wait, There’s More

Divers can fine tune their buoyancy skills after open water certification.  Taking a so-called “peak performance buoyancy “ specialty course provides additional skills.  As the PADI course description states

Excellent buoyancy control is what defines skilled scuba divers. You've seen them underwater. They glide effortlessly, use less air and ascend, descend or hover almost as if by thought. They more easily observe aquatic life without disturbing their surroundings. You can achieve this, too. The PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy Specialty course improves the buoyancy skills you learned as a new diver and elevates them to the next level.

Why these concepts and techniques are an “add on” rather than part of the open water certification course perplexes me. 

My Experience Observing  Peak Performance Buoyancy

I did have a chance to do the in-water skills portion of the course when my dive buddy, Luke, completed the Peak Performance Buoyancy session in Kona, Hawaii in 2018.  At the time, Luke had completed about 10 dives.  I tagged along to help balance the workload between the dive guides and instructors on board the Kona Diving Company boat.  In doing so, I went through the skills as an active participant rather than as a passive observer.

Luke’s PPB required that he complete the on-line e-learning module and two open water dives.  First, our instructor, Hailey, checked that Luke was neutrally buoyant at the surface using the tried and true method described above.  For Luke, 18 pounds of weight did the trick.

Hailey then put Luke through a series of exercises.  She placed three weight pouches on the sandy bottom containing one pound, three pounds, and five pounds.  Starting with one pound, she directed him to approach and pick up the pouch without disturbing the bottom or sculling with the hands.  After a few tries, Luke mastered snatching the one pound pouch.  The exercise progressed to retrieving the three pound pouch and finally to the five pound pouch.  

During the three-minute stop at the end of the dive, Hailey asks Luke to hover at 15 feet both horizontally and vertically.

As the dives progressed, Luke’s skill increased.  The ultimate test of mastery of the skill is to hold the lotus position while suspended mid-water.  Luke held the position for 80 seconds--a commendable accomplishment.

In between exercises as we toured we encountered black triggerfish, butterfly fish, lots of jacks (a symbol of masculinity in the Hawaiian culture), and a white-mouthed eel.  We saw a milkfish, usually a diver-skittish species, and a filefish consuming a jellyfish.  When it was done, it nibbled on Luke’s head.  I guess the filefish confused Luke with a jellyfish with his newly found buoyancy control.

All kidding aside, after a skill is learned it takes practice in order to be ingrained in a diver's technique.  After a few dives, Luke had mastered the art of maintaining neutral buoyancy throught the entire dive.

Steller Sea Lions: The Movie

 The Steller sea lion encounter in the Inian Islands left an indelible impression on my diving psyche.  I really did not relish another encounter in the wild.  But, you can’t really dive the border of the Gulf of Alaska without running into the critters.

Specifically, the area of the Gulf of Alaska where I do my open water diving, Resurrection Bay and Prince William Sound, is populated by the Steller sea lion Western Distinct Population Segment (DPS).  This DPS is listed as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act,   (The Steller sea lions in the Inian Islands are part of the Eastern DPS, which was listed as “threatened” until 2013.  Their removal from the list is a conservation success story.)  As far as my encounters go, east versus west, are pretty much the same.

I was diving in the area of Mary’s Rock at the entrance to Resurrection Bay in May 2015 from the M/V BottomTime when I had my second memorable encounter with a large group of Steller sea lions.  At first, they were quite curious and playful, as shown in the accompanying video taken with a GoPro Hero 3+.  What the video does not show is how quickly their behavior became more aggressive as they started tugging on my gear and mouthing my hooded cranium.  They may have been bored because this encounter was much shorter than the one in the Inian Islands. 

In October 2014, I started as a volunteer exhibits diver helping to maintain the Steller sea lion, seal, and bird habitats at the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward, Alaska.  As my participation in the science diving program at ASLC increased, my open water dives in Alaska dwindled to zero.  Nowadays, my 15 to 20+ a year dives in Alaska are working dives in the confined waters of the three habitats. 

The Steller sea lions are removed from the habitat for the duration of our maintenance dives, usually an hour or so.  My encounters with Steller sea lions today occur with them on the wet side of the habitat’s glass and me on the dry side.  They are magnificent creatures no matter how you encounter them.  I will note that ASLC divers will wear helmets when doing open water dives near Steller sea lion habitats.  I think if I ever again dive with the critters in the wild, I will do the same.  It seems like the prudent thing to do.

Steller Sea Lion Encounter--Inian Islands

 

Note:  This story is a revised and updated version of that published in as different blog.  This versions had more graphics including video.

Scuba divers encounter California sea lions often in Southern California.  They dart around divers with a mesmerizingly dizzy choreography.  The liveliest encounters that I experienced with the critters occurred at Anacapa and San Miguel Islands

Dale Sheckler writing in California Diving News observed:

Underwater, these animals are very fast moving, precocious, and prone to mischief. They will zoom in right at your face, sometimes blowing bubbles, roaring all the way. It is all at the same time frightening, exhilarating, and fun.

Such encounters are truly special but often don’t last long enough for elaborate study or photography. The best sea lion encounters are those that last an entire dive. But that is tough to do. Sea lions bore easily. They move in quick, check you out, then move off. To keep them around for an entire dive you need to first go where the most sea lions are and, more importantly, better understand their behavior and keep the attention of these flighty speedsters of the deep that seem to be forever suffering from “attention deficit disorder.”

This narrative pretty much describes most of my encounters.  One memorable encounter happened while mapping the wreck of the Cuba at San Miguel Island.  One of them came from above and tugged on my fin as a held a tape measure in place.  I turned expecting to find my dive buddy only to see the sea lion disappear into the kelp as if to say “gotcha” in an aquatic version of ding, dong ditch.

When I moved to Alaska, I had a brief encounter with one of their larger cousins, the Steller sea lion. While diving with a group at Smitty’s Cove in Whittier a solitary Steller did a quick swim by.  If I had been looking in a different direction, I might have missed it.  Little did I know that was not how most encounters with Steller sea lions unfolded.

Saturday, July 21, and Sunday, July 22, 2007, The Inian Islands, Southeast, Alaska

We anchored in a pass between two of the five islands that make up the Inian Island group just outside Glacie Bay Naional Park and north of the community of Elfin Cove.  The scenery this clear July morning is nothing short of spectacular.  I awaken early, grab a cup of coffee and head topside of the MV Nautilus Explorer to enjoy a wonderful panorama of the heavily wooded islands and the mountains beyond.

The amplified chimes ring and the loudspeaker announcement “good morning, dive briefing in the main salon” invites still sleepy divers to the early morning dive briefing. In these latitudes the day dawns early, so the sun is well into the sky as we haul ourselves into the salon to learn about the dive. We will not be disappointed. Today’s dive will take us to a reef in the Inian Islands and an area frequented by Steller sea lions. As a result, the skipper cautions that we will be subject to scrutiny by the sea lions. The plan is to anchor up in about 30 feet of water, descend to the bottom, hunker down along the rock ledges, and let the sea lions initiate contact. The behavior we expect witness will start out with curiosity and progress to aggressive posturing to possible “mouthing”—what I call “play chicken and chew.” We would descend and ascend in groups, after all, there is safety in numbers. While the briefing thoroughly covers the contingencies, the abstraction of the description does not quite equate to the reality of the situation.

I am no stranger to marine mammal encounters having been joined by California sea lions on numerous dives. These experiences and critters are not similar, not even close. The similarity ends with the words “sea lions” in their name. (Steller sea lions are the only living members of the genus Emetopias; their closest living relatives include other sea lions in the genus Zalophus which includes the California sea lion.) Compared to their lower 48 west coast counterparts, Steller sea lions are larger, more aggressive, and seem to have an attitude that goes along with being the biggest and toughest critter on the rock.

A little description sets the stage. Males can tip the scales at 2,500 pounds and measure 11 feet in length, although the bachelor bulls we may encounter will most likely weigh less than half that maximum (whew, that’s a relief). Females can weight up to 800 pounds andmeasure 9.5 feet in length.   The bachelor Steller sea lion is still larger than most full-grown California sea lions. To put it in perspective, a half-ton Steller sea lion exceeds the capacity and cargo space of most full-size pickup trucks. One guide book describes the behavior of the Steller sea lion as “the species roars and growls deeply rather than barking; sometimes swims by to inspect divers” and goes on to describe California sea lions as “darker and smaller” than their Alaska relatives.

After the dive I concluded that the author of that book has a gift for misunderstatement. If what I witness on this dive is a “swim by” then the Luftwaffe fighters going after 8th Air Force bombers did a “fly by.” To top it off, there is no agreement as to their name, various sources identify the critters as Steller sea lions, Stellers sea lions, and Steller’s sea lions.

The First Encounter

I enter the water with the last third of the divers reflecting more my station at the back of the skiff rather than the luck of the draw. When I get to the bottom, I find a rock in the kelp and used it as cover. Trouble is, at least two other divers want to use the same rock so we get stacked up; but we decide to play well together and take turns alternately cowering and looking up. This rock seems to be a valuable piece of real estate and I consider selling it in a time share scheme. Cautiously at first, the sea lions began to work the outer perimeter of our group. Looking up, I see what looks like dozens of sea lions darting around above in a quite stunning choreography of fur and fat. I take random pictures with my Sony Cybershot digital camera as the situation allows, but in the turbid green water figured all I would get is “shadows” of the sea lions as they climb, dive, and loop-the-loop about us. I notice my buddy’s tank band has come lose and the tank slipped down. I point out the situation to another diver closer to her and he quickly repositions the tank and cinches the band tight.

Instantaneously, as if on cue, the sea lions’ actions change. They move closer, abandoning any pretense of turning away at the last minute. As if to “count coup,” the critters begin “mouthing” the divers. The sea lions seem to mouth anything that is exposed, which in the shelled up position most of us have assumed seems to leave just our heads. The critters seem to come in waves rather than in a constant frontal assault. The scene is a melee of cowering divers and plunging sea lions. We are surrounded and outnumbered and I begin to wonder if this how Custer felt. 

I see a diver in front of me get mouthed on the top of his neoprene hood, a situation that reminds me of checking the ripeness of melons in the grocery store produce section. I get the same treatment a few times on the noggin, these are equal opportunity stalkers. One tugs hard at my regulator hose; now it is getting personal; which means it is time to leave.

I join a small group of divers heading to the surface. We make no safety stop. A few of the sea lions detach from the main body and follow us up, although whether they do so as an escort or to pick off stragglers I can’t say. They play a Border collie role in that they keep the flock together.

A pretty stiff current is running at the surface and some of us begin to drift away from the skiff. The crew directs us to “swim toward the boat” as they are plucking other divers out of the ocean. Kicking against the current, the best I can do is slow the drift and wait for the skiff to motor over for the pick up.

Back on board the Nautilus Explorer, I peel back my drysuit and discover the polar fleece undergarment is damp. I figure that in craning my neck to watch the sea lions, a trickle of water entered through the neck seal.

The Second Encounter

The next day, we do an afternoon dive at a location the skipper has named “Bad Girls Wall.” In the dive briefing, the skipper surmises that we will probably see more sea lions on this dive, just not in the number we encountered the day before. As we drift along the wall, the sea lions approach and dart away, seemingly more curious and not exhibiting the belligerent aggressiveness evident on the previous day’s dive. Except for their size, I would speculate these California sea lions that strayed up the coast. My illusion and complacency startling shatters at the end of my safety stop. A sea lion zips in and mouths my forearm as if being offered the drumstick of a Thanksgiving turkey. (I should probably be thankful he didn’t want a thigh or breast.) I am startled as its oral cavity encompassed my drysuit-clad arm. I feel the squeeze but not much pressure. He lets go and is gone as quickly as he arrived. The incident, which lasts all of one or two breaths doesn’t last long enough for my surprise to progress to astonishment.

Back on the Nautilus Explorer, my dive buddy Lynn tells me that by happenstance he captured the encounter up to the point of connected of the sea lion’s mouth around my forearm. The video camera was running and he turned it off as we broke the surface. As I watch the replay, I see the critter approach mouth wide open as if it were about to rip into a salmon. I am pleased and relieved it knew the difference. The last frame of the video is just prior to the point of contact, making for a very dramatic visual.

I resolve to sit out a dive that goes back to the rookery.  Steller sea lions have a reputation for being “the grizzlies of the sea” and I don’t feel like poking the bear.

A few days later, a visit to the Whale Museum at Telegraph Cove, British Columbia, dramatically reinforces this point. The docent compares a Steller sea lion scull side-by-side with that of a brown bear (as in grizzly bear for those of you who don’t speak Alaskan or BC). The Steller skull dwarfs the brown bear’s skull. She highlights another anatomical difference—the brown bear has both incisors and molars reflecting his omnivore diet; the Steller sports only incisors. Fortunately, I can look at the skull and teeth before me with the disinterested detachment of someone who has looked into the jaws of the living animal.

Is any of the foregoing an exaggeration? If there is any doubt, I suggest you take the plunge and find out for yourself.