For the forth morning in a row, we watched a spectacular marine mammal show before breakfast--two days of blue whales, a day of dolphins and pilot whales this morning. These pilot whales were behaving quite differently from those of two days ago. The "blackfish" were spread over a large area in subgroups and diving deeply for food. It was a joy to watch them blow on the surface a number of times and then arch their backs and head straight down into the deep, blue water.

After breakfast the Sea Lion anchored at Los Islotes and we were soon in our Zodiacs for a tour of this beautiful, red volcanic island. The first thing we noticed were the sea lions on the rocks of the center of the island. As we approached we were able to distinguish the large males from the females and from the pups of the year. There males seemed huge but are not the breeding males that are now out to sea feeding and resting for the next reproductive season in June. Some of the females on the rocks were nursing their 6-month-old pups between trips out to sea to feed themselves. Many of the pups, however, had formed small groups and were darting around and playing with each other and our Zodiacs and anything else that happened to be handy. We are reminded of nothing more than young puppies in their exuberance. Later in our tour we were treated to Sally lightfoot crabs scuttling along the shoreline and blue-footed boobies courting on the cliffs above us.

Most of us then returned to the ship, changed into our snorkeling garb and headed back to the island to swim with the sea lions. At first it was a little scary to be confronted with a huge male or an exuberant pup, but soon we were used to them and they to us and we could just enjoy this experience of a lifetime.

And this was the way we spent our New Year's morning aboard the Sea Lion.