We have had a noisy neighbor here on the docks for the past week. Mostly he keeps to himself, but if you get too close he can get decidedly ornery. The other day a small fishing boat cleaned a wahoo on the dock and tossed the remains in the water.  Sealion feast day!  I am sure he went out and told all his buddies about how he went out and caught one of the fastest swimming fish in the ocean for himself.

Last night a small open powerboat came into the docks to their assigned spot, two slips down from ours. Between the boat and the main dock is this big bruiser sprawled on the dock. To give you a sense of perspective, he is about 7 feet long, and I would guess well over 400 pounds. Way too big to be “cute” close up.

The guy on the boat figured that once he was tied up, he could either sneak or dart past the snoozing sealion. Fortunately, once he had the boat secured he came to his senses assisted by a very mean look and loud growl from the animal already in possession of the dock space.  Unfortunate in a way, because we could have had the latest YouTube viral video if he had kept to his original plan!

Rather than leaving the poor guy out on the end of the dock waiting all night for the sealion to swim away on his own, I used a trick I learned from the harbormaster in Monterey: How to make a sealion go away.  Surprisingly, you spray them with a hose. It took about a minute of soaking before this guy decided if he was going to be wet, he might as well be in the water.