Today we spent the morning working on dive training. Ed is getting close to completing his Dive Master certification but we still have some work to do. The water here in the Galapagos is getting colder as the Humbolt current from Peru begins to take control so everyone wore wet suits.

Dives in the park require a local guide but we simply did a dive under the boat to work on skills which the local dive shop said we could do without concern. The visibility was moderate, perhaps 20 feet or so. The bottom under the boat was perfect sand and made a nice training spot.

Within five minutes of our decent a playful young sea lion showed to see if he could incite us to run off and chase him. We would diligently try to practice scuba skills and he would spin around us, bump us with his nose, nip at our fins and anything else he could think of to get us to play. After a fun dive with our sea lion friend we returned to the boat to clean up and head ashore.

We have divided the boat into a sea lion napping area and a humans only area. By the second day, left uncontrolled, the sea lions we all over the boat. They were on the fore deck, in the cockpit and perhaps only because of Roq, not quite in the cabin. Our concern for old Roq's odds against a large sea lion and our desire to keep the sea lions from getting into a dangerous spot caused us to segregate the boat. Everyone we asked informed us that barbed wire was the only means to keep them out of a place they would otherwise like to go. So we now have a coiling barbed wire fence between the lower two steps on our boat and the upper swim platform. The sea lions can still hop up on the lower steps and sun themselves or sleep at night (we had a mama and a suckling baby last night) and yet if they try to go higher on the boat they are stopped by the wire barrier. They seem quite smart enough to avoid the barbed wire and we now have a peaceful coexistence. That said they do make some rather loud gargling and burping type noises at all hours. They also seem to enjoy playing between the hulls. They are pretty carefree critters.