Sea Lions at Marina Del Rey’s Chace Park

Today at Marina Del Rey’s Chace Park I was able to escape the heat for a couple of hours. The weatherman said that there would be the beginnings of an onshore flow (sea breeze), and he was right. It was utterly delightful, except that the coolness attracted a lot of young men who were loudly attesting to their street cred, making it difficult for me to read.

That’s all right, I walked to a bench in the shade at Stone Point, where the cool breeze that has not been present all week during the current heat wave cooled my head. Funny thing, as I returned to my parked car, I felt the wind die down and the temperature rise every hundred feet (30 meters). By the time I sat in my car, I felt I was in a sauna.

When the weather is unrelievedly hot, the thing to do is make like a lizard. But, since we are at the edge of the sea, make like a sea lion. I watched the sea lions for a few minutes, trying to determine whether they were in fact harbor seals. As soon as I heard one of them make the characteristic barking sound, I knew that they were in fact sea lions. The other identification is to check whether they have visible ears, but I wasn’t close enough to be 100% certain.

In any case, these sea lions were doing the right thing on a hot day.