Swimming with sea lions

Yesterday I strolled through Puerto Madryn looking for a diving company who offers snorkeling with sea lions - turns out there are actually quite a few. I stopped at a scuba agency which has this relaxed surfer style, directly on the beach. They told me to come back today at seven in the morning because the wind will be too strong the other days. I got up early and was soon fully equipped with a wetsuit, snorkel, fins, diving gloves, swimming goggles and some diving hat. We, that is a small group of 8 people, were brought 30 minutes to the "hot spot" for sea lions. I had my smartphone not with me, else I'd show you pictures of beaches CROWDED with sea lions. That alone was already pretty cool. Well we then jumped into the water, I needed a few minutes to get used to breathe through a tube but got into it soon enough.

Yeah well and then the first sea lions already showed up, the instructor told us before not to push interaction too much, it will come on its own - like with cats. At first they have been shy and I tried not to be in the crowd of the 8 people. Suddenly there were two young SL (short for sea lion) close to me, kinda playing with each other while circulating around me like a dog chases it's tail. In the beginning I was afraid to loose them, so I constantly followed until I realized that they actually followed me. The cubs were sadly too afraid to be touched or to bite me (they don't really bite, more like a playful nibbling) but it has been super cute to watch em play around around me.

Our group went to some other place where they wouldn't follow anymore so I had to leave my two cute friends alone.

There were also really big and old ones but they weren't so interested in contact, guess they were "too old for this shit". But there was a medium sized one who's fur had a slight orange color, who was super playful. At first I touched him carefully which he didn't mind. He then swam with his belly up and I took that as an invitation to scratch him there which he apparently enjoyed a lot! He kept rotating around me in that position, while I scratched with my diving gloves his belly for a minute straight. As the other guys of the group saw what's going on, they joined but my orange friend left soon as we were just too many people. 

When I separated from the group my orange friend came again to me and I found out he likes his back scratched aswell!

There have been more encounters with SL but this was by far my favorite!

The diving instructor was equipped with two Go-Pros (sport videos cameras) and was constantly recording. Tomorrow I'll get the footage and will update this blog entry if there are cool shots 👍

The SL are 100% wild, they are not trained or fed or anything and they live in a nature preserve so the instructor called us back when we got too close to the shore or places we shouldn't go but he was always super cool with us.

When we were on the way back everyone suddenly made "uhhh" and "aahhh" sounds - turns out we just met two "right whales" (yes that's their name) catching air. They didn't do any stunts like jumping but showed us their fins and blew air through their holes. I plan to go for whale watching later today and am already very excited!

The driver of the speedboat we were on turned the motor off while we were with the whales and glided slow and peaceful along them, that was super cool. We were also fed alfajores (typical Argentinian sweets) and mate on the boat to warm up again. I gotta say these people were super cool, they lived the relaxed surfer style the store looked like! They are called 

Lobo Lars Diving

Can highly recommend this place 👍

Update: I finally have the fotos, the videos will follow soon!

Update 2: VIDEOS ARE ONLINE!

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1RQQ7sGqnCn_lyUueMr6DmM89aU2kEEEr