Photo Hunt Contest - Acquaintance with Steller's sea lion

The sea lion, he is the northern sea lion, or the Steller sea lion . Adult males, can be more than 3 meters and weighs about a ton.

One such big guy has a whole harem of one or two dozen females, plus young. In this case, if you observe them on land, then most of the time they just lay on the scrappy cliffs. Well, sometimes they snarl at each other, there is suddenly a flipper to someone who was crushed)) Local residents call them bags of potatoes.

But in the water even the largest and massive become maneuverable and speedy. Sometimes it is difficult even to track its movement in the water column, especially when visibility is far from ideal.

When we dived with them in Kamchatka, the visibility in the water did not exceed 5 meters. In fact, between the moment when you can notice the sea lion and the way it sweeps by the second passes. What is not much, making an amendment to the fact that you are in full gear: a dry suit with a poddervoy, a can, cargo and so on. total weight of a kilogram under 40 ...

The first time we dived with them in the south of Kamchatka, in the area of

the Bay of Russkaia. First the sea lions walked into the water inactive, one by one, two. We tried to keep distance. And if swam, then mostly from the back and when they were noticed, carried away. So passed the whole first day, and at the exit we had only a few frames with silhouettes. But the next day everything was different. It cost us to be in the water, like almost everyone who was on rocks jumped into the water. They were worn around, and simultaneously in the zone of visibility there could be 10, 15 and even 20 animals. They often swam up close and looked at us. It's true they did prefer it again from the back. Turn around - and there look at you such a smiling little creature. And then not one ...

It was interesting and at the same time not too comfortable. As behind them, especially all at once, we did not have time to follow. The speed of frolicking sea lions is amazing. While they can so flex and maneuver, helping themselves flippers, then guess where it will float in the next moment is extremely difficult.
At the end, they had already tried our flippers to taste, but with our freediver and did enter into the rage. Were emerging and went all into the water synchronously, as if on command.

And when we left, they did not want to let us go - they demanded an encore) It only remains to guess how everything would turn out, whether we had one more day shooting in Kamchatka?
[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 52.378481 lat 158.572884 long Acquaintance with Steller's sea lion d3scr)