Catching the Wave!

Catching the Wave - Surfin' Sea Lion!

Another one from my annual August "Humpbacks, Orcas, Sea Lions and More" aquatic mammals photo tour. This one fit (for me) into the "Hey...I didn't know they did that" category!

There's a very remote sea lion colony we regularly visit on my summer photo tour. Near the edge of the colony (and further into the open ocean), there's a few rocks where the swells break into very surfable waves. And...to our surprise...a group of about 20 subadult Steller sea lions were surfing in the big breakers. Over and over again. The sea lions would only join the waves breaking away from the rocks and would ride the waves as far the could - often for a good 100 metres - and then turn back and swim out to catch another. We watched the sea lions for about a half an hour and then returned on the following day (when the tide was at about the same height) and found the sea lions there (and surfing) again. Over the time we watched the sea lions we saw single surfers on a wave, some "doubles", and few triples, and even one wave with 4 sea lions rippin' along in parallel. We even saw a few particularly daring lions actually enter - and then disappear - "under" the curl (riding the pipe?) and emerge through the cascading waves. It was an incredibly cool thing to watch (and photograph!).

As a trained behavioural ecologist I tend to think in terms of "adaptive benefits" and "survival values" when observing animal behaviour. And, of course, I always try to avoid anthropomorphism. But it was REALLY hard to watch these frolicking sea lions and think they were doing this for any reason other than having a good ol' time...you know...old fashioned FUN!

Back to the photo - I like the look on the surfer's face - hard to think he/she wasn't really having a great time. Wish I had a better sky to work with, but it is what it was...

Subject: Steller Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus) surfin' in the breakers
Location:Northern Vancouver Island region, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D4
Lens: Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VR lens - hand-held from floating Zodiac. VR on and in "Normal" mode.
Exposure: 1/2500s @ f6.3; ISO 720. -0.33 stop compensation compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: Cropped from horizontal capture - this is full frame vertically (with cropping from either side)

As always, for more about this image (including processing details and this time a 2400 pixel version of the image), just follow this link:

http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/latest/.

Comments and critiques welcomed - probably best to view the larger version prior to doing so!

Cheers...

Brad