Behavior:
I have experienced the playful nature of the sea lions while diving. When snorkeling and looking under a rocky ledge for lobsters or abalone, I have looked through the hole and seen the sea lion looking into that same hole from the other side. Then, when I surface to get air, that sea lion has surfaced and snorts and looks at me. It repeats what I did for several times. I have also had the “unpleasant” adventure of having them “line up” at a distance and come shooting in at me, one by one, but they always turned off when they got within 3 yards of me. This has happened to me while I was on scuba at the bottom, and also once when I was swimming back to the boat on the surface. The sea lion swam parallel to me about 20 feet deeper, and then turned and swam right up at me, turning off at the last instant. I have never had any of them swim into me.
Male territorial behavior: during breeding season, the male is very aggressive in “guarding” its territory/rookery/harem. Once, during a photo shoot, I guided some photographers onto a rocky beach, at the lower end of which there was a rookery, dominated by one very large male. When one of the photographers scrambled down the rocks to get a closer shot, the male became very disturbed and actually came out of the water and onto the rocks toward the photographer, who saw that male charging and climbed safely up out of harm. I told the photographer that he should have taken a shot of that male charging him with its mouth open and head thrown back. That would have been a spectacular shot, but alas, fear drove the photographer out of that great shot.
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