But up here you get to watch the sea lions body surfing in Tomales Bay, or just last month, virtually schools of harbor seals in orchestrated action in the shallows, scooping up herring I suppose. It's just a game of odds, either way, fish versus seal, seal versus shark. With hundreds of seals involved, the majority are going to survive the Great Whites. But with only a handful of human surfers involved, or more likely, just a few scuba divers dressed to look like seals, and rather slow-swimming seals, the statistical odds of being selected for lunch are quite a bit higher. That's why I prefer to watch from shore. But when I was a kid spending certain summers on the Tillamook coast of Oregon, there was a then remote spot where many big pools were isolated from the outrageous surf, and got warm enough to swim in. My cousin and I would routinely dive and handcuff a dozen or so big dungeness crabs with kelp fronds, and bring them back for the lunch kettle.
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