il_drive's photostream  

A mountain protecting one of the beautiful coves on this island. We were on our way home from the sea lions at this point, so I got the beautiful afternoon sun! And a caught a bird in it, too! :)

This was the boat from Marlin Adventures that my son jumped from the day before INTO a pod of orcas!!! There were about 20 of them in all, and almost half of them swam right by him! He had his underwater video camera if anyone is interested in seeing the video on YouTube! You have to wait until about 30 seconds into the video to see the orcas.

youtu.be/x-VIiTQflMw

It is a little choppy and you can see his fingers a little! ;)

It was almost more like a cave the way it went through the mountain...the water was perfect! Was that snow on the mountain? Nope...signs of the birds! ;-)

There was a nice current coming through, but not so strong that we couldn't swim through against it. The sea lion bull that was guarding the passage and barking as we got near was another story. During this time of year (pups being born), the bulls are extra territorial. I didn't test him, while others did!

The colony in the area is about 800 strong, so we saw LOTS of them! One of the differences between sea lions and seals are that sea lions have actual ears and seals just have the small holes in the side of their heads. Another one? When they walk, sea lions use their front flippers as well, whereas seals don't!