September 5, 2005 -- San Carlos, Mexico -- One of life`s unforgettables. Kneeling in the sand, in about 25 feet of water, receiving a briefing with five other students before a navigation exercise. The instructor keeps looking in my direction ("great, busting my chops again, now what did I do?"). Then I get the elbow from my dive buddy. At the far end of the semi-circle of students, I look to my right and there is a sealion floating about four feet off the sand, watching the instructor (pretending to be a diving student?). The sealion sees me eyeballing her. She turns tail and flees. Awesome! Next dive, an hour later. I`m not in the water five minutes when she finds me! Or at least I think it`s the same sealion. She rolled her body a little from side to side. I did the same. She did a spin. So did I. This mimicking went on for a few minutes. The she left again but this time I followed and she looked back just to make sure. To make a long story a little shorter, we ended up swimming side-by-side. Spinning and diving. After about five minutes of this, I needed to stop. What a workout! She swam a circle or two around me and then, sure that she had bested me, swam off into the deep.