CRAZY Sea Lion attack

May have been a resident at the Marine Mammal Center at some time.

 

  My old friend Mark used to Scuba dive out of Monterey and  he would tell me stories of seals comming in to check him & dive buddy out, an some would mess with them by raceing in then turning away at the last moment, and nipping at them.  I think basically playing with.

what goes on in the mind of a frubag????????  I vote lead.

what goes on in the mind of a frubag????????  I vote lead.

Like I said "previous hostile encounters with humans"   

A 357 isn't that much extra weight in the boat....I was in fear for my life....

me. After a few seconds of hostel behavior, he jumped off my stern, did another summersault and disappeared. The whole thong happend on only a matter of seconds.

I don't know if I'm going to believe this story Eric.  I found everyone to be very friendly at the hostels I stayed at in Iceland, but I'll admit that one German hiker wearing a thong DID make me a bit nervous!!

Allen

I have been kayak fishing in a certain area for about three years (the friend that I fish with has been fishing the area for at least fifteen or twenty years),

and you have 2 posts?     this is the real question that needs answering. 
Why? 

Thanks for the post. Interesting discussion. But I'm not sure we will be able to reach a definitive reason for why it happened. Too many different factors involved. Although, we could probably learn from the experience.
I assume this happened near Monterey/Carmel since you live in Marina. The sealions around here can be very unpredictable, due to varying levels of interactions with humans. In most cases, too much exposure to humans. Which causes them to act brazenly and have no fear.
This particular interaction seems like an extraordinarily strange sealion encounter (say that 5x fast haha). It's definitely not normal behavior. If it was a different time of year, I'd say maybe domoic acid poisoning. If it happened after this last deluge of rain, maybe some other form of bacterial infection. If it happened in deep, open water maybe it was being stalked by a predator. If you were close to a rookery or haulout, it could've been acting territorially.