Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

We all went over to Isla Espiritu Santo again today to go snorkeling. After about half an hour, Saira and Rachel were back in the boat relaxing but Michael and I were still in the water. The sea lions had been pretty reclusive and weren't in the water with us like last time, although they sure were hollering like crazy from their sunspots on the shore.

As we got a little close to the shore for his liking (lots of pups had just been born in the last month), the big dude — the king of the island — in the picture above started really freaking out, barking and truly getting agitated. I turned to Michael and said something along the lines of “you know, I'm feeling kind of freaked out right now” and we booked it back to the boat as quickly as we could swim. At that moment the bull jumped off of his perch and started rushing toward us.

As it turns out, accelerating our pace toward the shore was probably the wrong call, because it meant that we ended up intersecting his path, since he can swim about seven times as far as us clumsy humans, aquatic ape or not. I think both of us just about had a heart attack as this grizzly bear sized sea lion passed about three feet underneath us. A moment later he was back up on the shore sunning himself, with a smug grin on his face as he watched us scamper back into our ponga boat.

Oh, and even though we were in a modest pango, it was yacht day or something out on Espiritu Santo as we passed a half dozen mega yachts. As you know, a sailboat is one of my dream estates, but Rachel is more of an oil sheik like character and expects to travel under power — I told her that dollar-for-dollar a power yacht kind of sucks in comparison to a sailboat when it comes to trans-oceanic crossing. She told me that this was the boat she expects me to buy her for her birthday and it was perfectly capable of any crossing I could throw at it.

I'm good at what I do and make a good living, but I think Rachel has overestimated my earning potential!