I am fairly adventurous when it comes to animals. This is one reason I was so down to try the Lobo Larson “swim with sea lions” tour in Puerto Madryn.
This tour was ranked EXTREMELY highly (#1) on TripAdvisor for the Puerto Madryn area, and it sounded like a very very cool thing to do--especially since I am obsessed with cute animals. Dan and I are not strangers to snorkeling, and have been lucky enough to swim with both black-tipped sharks, and humpback whales while on our honeymoon in Tahiti.
While both of those experiences were amazing, I was out-of-my-mind excited to swim with the sea lions, who had been billed as, the "puppies of the sea."
Super enticing image of the tour from the provider's website.
We get into our gear, and head to Punta Lobo
We bought our tickets the day before, and were told this was a 3 hour tour--2 hours of prep, travel, and training, 1 hour of swimming with the sea lions.
The beginning of the tour consisted of the basics. How do you wear a 7mm thick wetsuit? How do you turn around or swim in said wetsuit? How do you avoid scaring the sea lions away, etc.
After the training in the water, the 8 of us in our group boated over to Punta Lobo. I was still very excited to see the sea lions at this point, but I wasn't digging how the wetsuit had converted me from a capable swimmer into a helpless buoy.
Also, I kind of had to pee at this point, and it didn't feel right to pee in a rented wetsuit.
Me and Dan in the boat's cabin on the way to Punta Lobo. Still pretty stoked to be visiitng the sea lions.
Sea lions are nothing at all like puppies
Based on the training infomercial, and everything I saw on the website, I was expecting to interact with an army of adorable baby sea lions, ready for love and kisses.
This was not exactly what happened.
Remember how, earlier in the day we were enthralled while watching the male sea lions fight on the beach? Well, the tour took us back to the same beach. So, the "cute sea lions" we were going to swim with were 800 lb alpha males. Somehow, I had the info in advance to know that this would be the case, but I had not connected the dots. Or I had chosen to block out reality, in pursuit of my baby sea lion dream.
Anyways, as we sat in the boat, waiting for our turn to get in the water, I started questioning what we were doing on this tour. The males were not cute and adorable. They were about 9 feet long, and the best word I could use to describe them was "hulking."
They did not swim up to you playfully, steal your snorkel and amuse you with their silly baby antics. They swam underneath you and snuck up on you like a watery version of Batman.
Over the course of an hour, we got within feet of at least 7 or 8 big alpha males. And I can tell you, as cool as it was to see these animals close up, I would not have wanted them to come any closer.
At one point, one of the big males swam about 3 or 4 feet underneath me, and we made dead-on eye contact. I had expected the eyes of the sea lion to be warm and expressive, but his were cold and fishy. He stared at me blankly, right in the face. It was a mental picture I won’t soon forget.
Turns out, it's hard to corral 8 bad swimmers in wetsuits
It was absolutely awesome (in the truest sense of that word) to see these giant animals alongside us, no matter how different the fantasy was from reality, but I think I would have enjoyed the experience a little more if it weren’t for the completely chaotic nature of our tour group.
Our guide, to his defense, was leading a half English, half Spanish group, and with all of us in our wetsuits, we were hard to tell apart, so I think he forgot who spoke which language. For example, at one point, I was standing on a rock, and our guide moved me aside, and said something I could only understand half of. What I thought he said was, “Don’t stand on the rock or the male will think you’re on his territory” - - which is absolutely terrifying, that I could accidentally start a turf war with one of these beasts. But before I could clarify, he had moved on, and I was left unsure whether my actions were rude, destructive, or dangerous.
In addition to the language gap, there were 2 other diving groups out there that day, the water was choppy, and there was a lot of wind. With all those factors combined, I could barely hear a word that was said. I’d get fragments of instructions, which only served to scare the hell out of me.
We also had some swimmers that weren’t so strong in the group, and as we learned before the tour, if we don’t stay together in a block, the animals leave. It was really hard to drag the group together, so we spent the 60 minutes in the water, basically trying to get our group in a straight line, instead of looking at the animals.
One of the males pops up to say "hello"
When we finally returned to the boat, I felt disappointed, relieved, tired. And I REALLY had to pee, all at the same time. I hoped--at least--we got some good pictures. (Eh.)
The most dangerous part of the tour occurs on land
As we headed back to shore, I tried to put the experience into context in my brain. I felt like we wasted about $200, but while I was disappointed, I was also relieved.
About half-way back, the boat pulled up on the shore, and we were told, "Get out. The truck is here."
Since we had not yet been in a truck, I was confused why we were being kicked out of the boat, and ushered to a truck. But, this was the option to get home.
Our driver, an absolute lunatic, drove about 120 km an hour over the dirt road, passing people on blind turns, swerving over the gravel, and just generally being a total asshole. I held on for my life in the back seat, thinking how, if we were on an English tour, I would make some joke about the driver trying to kill us to get him to slow down. I didn't really have words for those kind of jokes in Spanish, so I just held on.
We finally arrived back to the snorkel shop, and I finally got to pee. Best moment of the tour.
I think, if I were in Puerto Madryn again during baby season, I would give this another try. But, although I can check "swim with sea lions" off the list, I would say this was not the experience I was expecting . . . once again, Argentina adventure tours prove just a little bit too "real" for my tastes.