sea lions

Hi guys! Well, Nicole and I are about to leave for Ica, which is South of Lima about 4.5 hours. Yesterday we went swimming with Sea Lions (Lobos!) Dios Mio! I was soooo scared to get in the water, but I made it out alright! We took a boat out to an island that was an hour away from land. The ride was really tough. Nicole got sick and I felt a little sick. I just tried to imagine myself being rocked my mother nature and tried to release my body, as I was really tense. This helped a lot. When we got to the island, the Sea Lions FILLED it! It was covered in Lobos!! And they were all screaming at us! It sounded like a crowd of people screaming at a baseball game, it was the most bizarre thing ever...  

When the guide told me to put on my wetsuit, I put it on while trembeling with fear and frio! It was cold! I was really nervious while putting it on, but I just did it, with out fixating on thinking about it. Poor Nicole was laying on deck sick from the sea... Once all of us swimmers got to the edge of the boat, I was a little nervious to jump in the cold sea!  But I just did it, again with out stopping to think about if I should do it or not... Once I was in the water, it was very cold and I was nervious. The guide helped settle my nerves, and finally, we swam closer to the lions. It was the most incredible thing ever! And mostly scary! I knew they wouldn´t hurt us, but I still had to ask my guide ´they won´t hurt us!?´ The closest they got was about 3 meters away... they were so curious and very loud! They were showing their teeth everytime they opened their mouths to scream... it was so scary! I knew that they sensed our fear, because for a minute, when all of us swimmers were relaxed, they came very close. Once our nerves took control of us again, the sea lions reflected this and swam away! Man, once we turned around to go towards the boat, there were sea lions behind us. That was intense... however, I knew that they felt comfortable enough to go between the boat and us swimmers. Plus they were preoccupied with the boat. As soon as they saw we were approaching, they swam away... We swam back, and once I got to the deck, I couldn´t get up I was so exhausted from the cold, the fear, the rush of adrenaline, and nerviousness from being in water (I´m usually scared to swim in a Lake! let alone the sea! with a bunch of monsorous animals swimming around me!) Wow! Intense!! But I did it! Thanks, Nicole for getting pictures. I´ll try and post some pics soon! . Simone .