Alaska Stellar Sea Lions - Photos by John Lachelt and article by Tani Bell - Church.



Tani Bell - Church, (daughter of famed photographer Ron Church, the first American on the Cousteau Team) interviews John Lachelt, owner of Channel Dive Center in Juneau Alaska on his interesting encounter with the Alaska Stellar Sea Lions.



Sea lion diving is kind of an interesting endeavor in Alaska because the sea lions are big Stellar sea lions that typically are anywhere from 700 or 800 pounds all the way up to well over a ton. They get to become a rather massive critter. Sea lions are commonly seen here in the winter months because the young really like to go off to explore, cavort and have fun, so it’s real common to go out to places like the Shrine of St. Terese, Sunshine Cove or Amalga Harbor in Juneau, Alaska and have the sealions show up doing their thing.

Often time they are very curious. They are very gregarious animals and like to come over to say “hi”. Sometimes they get a little frisky and get into a mode where they are swimming, playing, cavorting and doing all kinds of stuff. Sometimes they get real frisky and grab your fins, giving you a little shake, other times they give you a little bump on the shoulder. If they get real comfortable with you they will come over, settle down on the bottom and go nose to nose with you. They will actually touch your nose with their nose, so here you have this big, huge wild animal that comes over and gets very close and personal.




This was an actual event encountered by John Lachelt of Channel Dive Center in Juneau Alaska. You can visit his dive center's web site at channeldive.com.

Another really interesting thing that sea lions like to play fetch. Fetch is an odd thing with sea lions because they will reach down, grab a small rock, and if they don’t eat it, the sea lions will bring it over, drop it in front of you then hover off and look at you. What they want you to do is pick the rock back up and throw it out to them then they will pick up the rock, bring it back over and drop it back in front of you. It’s kind of a weird fetch thing. They are kind of like a big mutant dog, but they are kind of cute.

Sea lions do eat rocks. (Tani: They eat rocks?)Yes, I even have video of them eating rocks then yakking them up (Tani: Oh lovely!). Apparently they have a fair amount of rocks that they eat for either buoyancy, ballast or perhaps to grind up shellfish parts and things like that which they may swallow whole I am sure.

Most of my sea lion encounters are pretty benign, their really are a lot of fun. They do speak a very distinct body language. You will see the female come in, approach and invert into an upside down “S” shape with their body, they will hang upside down and look at you. (Tani: Do the males hang upside down?) No, the big males go right straight up, drop their pectoral fins, drop their head a bit and what they are really asking you is if you are a threat and if you respond in kind, what you are telling them is “Yes, I am a threat and your mother wears army boots.”

The next thing that happens is the males will get a little testy and actually hunker down, start swimming around you really fast in an erratic behavior and start barking at you underwater, shaking their head, swimming at you with their mouth open, blowing bubbles, showing you their large canine teeth which are the size of baby carrots which is kind of impressive, but all you have to do is just go to a horizontal position again, keep your hand tucked in to yourself and that tells the sea lion that I’m ok, you're ok, and the next thing you know is they are all swimming around having a good time.

I had one really interesting sea lion experience. It was Jim Rapay, Sean Edwards and I diving out at sunshine cove, this was in kind of in late spring day, April or so. Visibility was pretty good, nice sunny day. We dropped down underwater doing our underwater checks and started heading of to the little islands in Sunshine cove, and the next thing I know I’ve got this big sea lion, this big lone bull and he looks at me and then he starts swimming around, gives me a couple of body checks and meanwhile I am trying to ignore him, staying horizontal, keeping my hands tucked in, and then he starts doing these little body check things and then he starts pulling on my fins and then he swims up face to face and starts doing the nose touches and he is really kind of getting on my nerves. Every time I turn and look this sea lion is hovering over me, or hovering next to me or hovering around me so we finally get down to 90 feet and he finally takes off and I was relieved.

Come to find out that they swim down to 1800 meters. I’m thinking 90 feet and I’m thinking he was gone. An interesting fact about sea lions. Anyway, the sea lion is gone; we are swimming through the sea pen forest, seeing some of the giant nudibranches as big as footballs and they are down there eating the big three feet tall, bright red and orange sea pens, seeing some of those things, picking up a bunch of nice dungeons crabs and actually having a pretty nice day.

We get back up to our 15 foot decompression stop and we are all just kneeling on the bottom I look over at Jim & Sean all of a sudden their eyes just filled up their masks! They just were really bug eyed! I’m kind of sensing at this point the sea lion is back. So as I am sitting there minding my own business I am looking around and I didn’t see him but the guys were pointing and there pointing in back of me so I just said I am not going to react to the sea lion but anyway the next thing I know I have this big chin resting on my shoulder and two giant pectoral fins wrapped under my arms and I am thinking the sea lion is going to do the nasty to me and I am thinking, thank God I am wearing a full bodied condom! And then I am thinking, No, this is not happening! I can’t believe this whole thing so I reached up for my console and I smacked him on the nose a couple three times and he looks at me like “How could you?” and then he swims away.

Then we get out of the water and of course Jim and Sean are just roaring with laughter because they were not violated, I was.

(Tani: Thank you John for sharing this story with us!)




Channel Dive Center
Alaska.com
Stellar Sea Lions (NOAA)
Stellar Sea Lions (Sea Lions Cave)