Catch of the Day?

OUR GOOD BALBOA YC FRIEND, Paul Blank, is an avid yacht racer, power boater, and chairman of the Newport Beach (CA) Harbor Commission. In his spare time he works full time as an IT exec. A month or so ago, I was helping Paul put PROMOTION, his beautiful True North 40, to bed on its mooring ball. In Newport Harbor it's not just the usual turning off of batteries, being sure all the hatches are closed, putting the covers on windows and furniture, and putting up the Seagull deterrents. It also means deploying the sea lion defenses – in some cases real fences in addition to dozens of other clever repellants.

Indeed, up and down the West Coast boaters go to great lengths to keep sea lions off their vessels while at anchor (and docks for that matter). If they manage to climb aboard, the creatures are very hard to get off, and leave an unbelievable stench even if they haven't, er, defecated.

Paul told me about a dog or two that had jumped into the water in pursuit of a sea lion with a bad outcome, and not for the sea lion.

Today Meg came across this YouTube video from a Canadian TV report of an incident last week involving a sea lion and a young girl about the size of your average dog on a dock in British Columbia. The video has gone viral, and probably good that it has. Happily the girl and the adult who jumped in to rescue her were not injured. Let this video be a lesson to all of us, especially those of you who are parents of young kids and boaters in sea lion country....