Bull Sea Lion Attack!
You may remember that we made a great Italian friend called Angela. We travelled with her from Tahiti, through Rapa Nui then said our very hungover goodbyes in Santiago de Chile. She only lives up the road from us in High Wycombe, so there is no doubt we will see her again.
We have kept in email contact since Chile and two days ago we recieved the following amazing email from her......
Home already I hear you ask. Well yes, I got back a couple of days ago. Let's just say I had an "incident". As ever, sod's law is functioning at peak performance in my life. Think back to the last email I sent, where I foolishly said that I had been sick, but not quite enough to end up in hospital with a needle in my arse, as had other people I had met travelling. For the record, that was not a complaint or a request. However, that is exactly the position I ended up in, not without a small amount of drama first. No, nothing quite as pedestrian as mere illness for me, oh, no, been there seen that. It's me after all, it needs to be much more exciting and unique than an illness or accident, no fun otherwise......
So I arrive in the Galapagos, meet the (lovely) people on my boat, chat, have lunch and head to Lobos Island for a spot of snorkeling. Marvellous, straight out there and up close and personal with the wildlife. Really. There am I having a lovely time snorkeling, seeing the fish and the sea lions when I look up and see a HUGE seal lion (male) swimming towards me. I didn't even get to finish that thought (I got to about "Wow that's HU..."), when bash and OUCH, it bit me. Yep, I was officially in the middle of the third bull sea lion attack of the year, hurrah! Luckily for me, it wasn't much of an attack, I was very lucky, and it just headbutted me, sunk it's jaws into my thigh, decided it didn't fancy Italian after all, and let go (rather than pulling half my thigh off). Also I'm immensely lucky that the lovely Steve from my boat, who I'd only met an hour or so before, saw it all, retrieved my fin which had come off in the melee, and stuck around to help me get back to the panga, rather than getting the heck out of there before the sea lion came back for seconds. Which might have been a possibility, as I was moving nowhere very fast. In fact, I was just rather surprised not frightened, I surfaced, and instead of screaming or shouting or anything dramatic (and maybe sensible..??!!) like that, I believe I just squeaked, faffed a bit trying to get my fin back on (whilst Steve no doubt was thinking "hurry up, hurry up, hurry up" and "sh*t that's a lot of blood" and scanning around us to see see if round two of attack of the sea lions was about to start), and finally made it back to the panga, where I calmly announced I'd been bitten as if asking for a cup of tea (apparently). Then it gets a bit hazy, shock settling in - but I think it was a bit of a 'Jaws' moment then, the guide shouting at everyone to get out out of the water, speeding back to the main boat, then speeding to the next big Island (again REALLY lucky, only 40 mins away) where I ended up, as I said, in hospital with a needle in my arse......
Two minutes after the attack.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, stayed out there for a week, still managed to see plenty of wildlife despite my injuries. The only time I cried throughout the whole experience (albeit briefly) was in hospital when they told me I wouldn't be able to drink because of the antibiotics and I faced a sober birthday! Of course I didn't have a sober birthday, I was plastered after one drink. Said goodbye my fantastic fellow guests (who had developed the ability to get out of the water remarkably fast if there were any bull sea lions about!). Met even more lovely people on my boat and generally had a good time despite it all (although I think I did freak them out a bit). Came home in a wheelchair, had lots of air hostesses feeling very sorry for me and upgrading me (very nice!) only to get this from my brother when I arrive: "So, you know Spiderman, when he got bitten by a spider he got all these special spider powers, does this mean you're going to be balancing a ball on your nose, going "arphh, arphh" and diving across the room if we throw fish at you soon?" I love being home...
A
XXX
Healing...?
We are glad she survived to tell the story as it´s great for our blog. It´s a survival story to be proud of and those scars will be shown off endlessly down the local after a few drinks. Heres to Angela.
Chris & Sam
We have kept in email contact since Chile and two days ago we recieved the following amazing email from her......
Home already I hear you ask. Well yes, I got back a couple of days ago. Let's just say I had an "incident". As ever, sod's law is functioning at peak performance in my life. Think back to the last email I sent, where I foolishly said that I had been sick, but not quite enough to end up in hospital with a needle in my arse, as had other people I had met travelling. For the record, that was not a complaint or a request. However, that is exactly the position I ended up in, not without a small amount of drama first. No, nothing quite as pedestrian as mere illness for me, oh, no, been there seen that. It's me after all, it needs to be much more exciting and unique than an illness or accident, no fun otherwise......
So I arrive in the Galapagos, meet the (lovely) people on my boat, chat, have lunch and head to Lobos Island for a spot of snorkeling. Marvellous, straight out there and up close and personal with the wildlife. Really. There am I having a lovely time snorkeling, seeing the fish and the sea lions when I look up and see a HUGE seal lion (male) swimming towards me. I didn't even get to finish that thought (I got to about "Wow that's HU..."), when bash and OUCH, it bit me. Yep, I was officially in the middle of the third bull sea lion attack of the year, hurrah! Luckily for me, it wasn't much of an attack, I was very lucky, and it just headbutted me, sunk it's jaws into my thigh, decided it didn't fancy Italian after all, and let go (rather than pulling half my thigh off). Also I'm immensely lucky that the lovely Steve from my boat, who I'd only met an hour or so before, saw it all, retrieved my fin which had come off in the melee, and stuck around to help me get back to the panga, rather than getting the heck out of there before the sea lion came back for seconds. Which might have been a possibility, as I was moving nowhere very fast. In fact, I was just rather surprised not frightened, I surfaced, and instead of screaming or shouting or anything dramatic (and maybe sensible..??!!) like that, I believe I just squeaked, faffed a bit trying to get my fin back on (whilst Steve no doubt was thinking "hurry up, hurry up, hurry up" and "sh*t that's a lot of blood" and scanning around us to see see if round two of attack of the sea lions was about to start), and finally made it back to the panga, where I calmly announced I'd been bitten as if asking for a cup of tea (apparently). Then it gets a bit hazy, shock settling in - but I think it was a bit of a 'Jaws' moment then, the guide shouting at everyone to get out out of the water, speeding back to the main boat, then speeding to the next big Island (again REALLY lucky, only 40 mins away) where I ended up, as I said, in hospital with a needle in my arse......
Two minutes after the attack.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, stayed out there for a week, still managed to see plenty of wildlife despite my injuries. The only time I cried throughout the whole experience (albeit briefly) was in hospital when they told me I wouldn't be able to drink because of the antibiotics and I faced a sober birthday! Of course I didn't have a sober birthday, I was plastered after one drink. Said goodbye my fantastic fellow guests (who had developed the ability to get out of the water remarkably fast if there were any bull sea lions about!). Met even more lovely people on my boat and generally had a good time despite it all (although I think I did freak them out a bit). Came home in a wheelchair, had lots of air hostesses feeling very sorry for me and upgrading me (very nice!) only to get this from my brother when I arrive: "So, you know Spiderman, when he got bitten by a spider he got all these special spider powers, does this mean you're going to be balancing a ball on your nose, going "arphh, arphh" and diving across the room if we throw fish at you soon?" I love being home...
A
XXX
Healing...?
We are glad she survived to tell the story as it´s great for our blog. It´s a survival story to be proud of and those scars will be shown off endlessly down the local after a few drinks. Heres to Angela.
Chris & Sam
posted by Chris at 6:22 PM
3 Comments:
Horrendous experience, glad she is OK.
So glad it wasn't more serious, although those wounds look pretty deep!
I had to get 2 spider's out of the bath for Georgie, and then had to rescue Rhianon from a daddy long legs this weekend ..... you don't have to go to the Galapagos islands for scary encounters with wild life!!
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