You have never experienced life until you have been attacked by a sea lion. In open water. With an unconscious kayak partner. Let me elaborate. It was a warm summer day on my week-long school camping trip to El Capitan when the camp counselors had the brilliant idea to go kayaking. Anyway, I was happily going kayaking with my friend Frank when the waves got to him.
“I don’t feel so well,” Frank barely managed to get out before he lost consciousness.
“Help! Somebody help!” I yelled.
A counselor heard and paddled over to us. She grabbed a ginger candy from inside her pocket and tried to hand it to Frank. Frank didn’t respond. I turned to look at him and saw him slumped forward in his seat, his paddle dipping into the water as his grip slowly loosened. I grabbed Frank’s paddle and stuck it into the back of the kayak. The counselor came closer and this time tried to force the ginger into Frank’s mouth. His eyes still closed, Frank turned away and slumped further forward, as if his unconscious self had somehow determined not to eat the ginger. The counselor let out a frustrated sigh. The ginger solution was not going to work.
“Jesse, I am going to take these two back because Frank fainted,” the counselor yelled, updating a colleague who was nearby but not involved in the rescue. “Julian, keep up.”
With that, she tore off at full speed. How was I supposed to keep up? She was a strong twenty-year-old in a single kayak. I was merely a kid in a double kayak with another kid who had fainted. I paddled furiously, but, unsurprisingly, she was halfway to shore before I had even moved 100 feet since my kayak unhelpfully tilted every minute. Then I upped my game. I thought to myself, “I am Superman,” and I paddled full speed, worried only about Frank’s health. I flew across the ocean and caught up to the counselor as she radioed for someone to help land our kayak. I thought we were safe. I was wrong. A giant piece of trash in the shape of a head started bobbing in the waves. No, that wasn’t right. It was a head that had peeked out of the water. It was the head of a cute little sea lion.
“Aw,” I said.
Just then, the sea lion charged at my kayak. Head over flippers, it sped across the ocean until it was two feet away from us. Can you believe that a sea lion can swim 30 feet in less than 10 seconds? Neither can I. I tried to paddle but I had lost my momentum. There was no escape. Just then, Frank woke up.
“S-s-sea lion,” Frank mumbled.
The sea lion jumped high above us, 1,300 pounds of blubber ready to crash down on us. Frank took one look at the sea lion and unhelpfully fell back unconscious. My heart jumped out of my body. A curious sea lion was going to kill me. I saw my life flash before my eyes as the sea lion came down with the force of a cannonball, determined to show off its splash. It almost destroyed me and Frank. Thankfully, I had snuck in one quick paddle stroke. The sea lion crashed in the water next to us, sending a torrent of water into my face as its eyes glowed in anger that I had made it look like a fool. I felt my glasses slip and my vision went blurry. When my sight returned seconds later, I stared in disbelief: the sea lion had stuck its head into my kayak, the very kayak I was in. I WAS IN A KAYAK WITH A SEA LION. The sea lion lunged for Frank’s hair. What was I supposed to do? In a panic, I hit it, with my fist, straight on, in the face. The sea lion roared in response and stumbled back into the water. I paddled full speed towards the vague outline of the 100 foot away shore. The sea lion followed me with a murderous gleam in its eyes. Finally, the counselor turned around to see what had taken me so long. As soon as she saw the sea lion, her eyes went wide.
“Paddle to shore!” she called out to me.
Her instruction seemed obvious, but I did not have time to comment. I knew I wouldn’t make it. The sea lion would catch up to me any second now. This was it. I closed my eyes as the sea lion pulled up next to me. Suddenly, I heard a thwack. Then another.
“Follow me, you deranged monkey,” the counselor yelled as she hit the sea lion with her paddle. I stared in amazement. “Go, Julian!” she urged. And go is exactly what I did. I reached the shore with a hard landing and immediately felt every eye on me.
“Sea lion,” I mumbled weakly, pointing.
“Aw,” all of the students yelled in unison.
“Everybody out of the water!” Mr. Gibble’s voice boomed across the beach.
I turned around. The sea lion had followed me. It jumped from the water and suddenly it was on the beach. A marine biologist walked over to take pictures. I was safe.
Looking back, I now know that the sea lion was not angry, but sick. Apparently there is a neurotoxin being released by algae blooms that is driving local sea lions to the point of insanity. Basically, the neurotoxin causes sea lions to lose their memory, which in turn leads them to go insane. When my parents found out about this attack, they, too, went insane, although their reaction was not caused by the neurotoxin released by algae blooms. Instead, they were upset at the thought that I was almost lost at sea. All in all, this was a crazy experience that I hope to never relive.