"It's not a great feeling to have 200 to 300 pounds roll over you."

Sea lions – they’re just like us! Summer time, as you know in Southern California, can bring wild crowds to local beaches. Surfers used to easy parking, through the colder months, and clear paths across clean sands to perky waves are met with bumper-to-bumper jams and delicate dances around sand toys, spike ball set-ups, to water choked with inland teenagers riding inflatable pool toys.

It can be frustrating.

So frustrating that it can lead a child birthing person to mutter naughty words under breath.

Two sea lions took it further and mild invectives, yesterday, and went full grumpy local on unsuspecting women and children enjoying the sun and sea in beautiful La Jolla.

While some ocean scientists suggested the ornery beasts, likely male, were trying to protect their breeding spots by chasing interlopers, Eric Otjen, Sea World’s in-house sea lion expert, declared that they were simply engaging in a classic bit of surf rage not uncommon on Australia’s Gold Coast.

“He’s got swimmers all around him on his way back out, but they don’t bother him. What this is all about is his right to mate,” Otjen told San Diego’s local NBC affiliate, adding: “This behavior is not uncommon at all. The reason why the video has gotten like 10 millions views is because everybody is running like Godzilla is chasing them. It may look funny that everybody is running, but it’s not a bad choice. You don’t want to be caught in the crossfire,” Otjen said. “Even if they don’t bite, it’s not a great feeling to have 200 to 300 pounds roll over you.”

While I would, and do, normally cheer cranky behavior, sea lions always get up on my wonderful friend’s sailboat and make it stink so bad. Approaching with the dingy, they will be lounging like big stinky fatsos on the sugar scoop, making ugly faces and uglier noises. All the rope reeks with their pungent yuck, when they slither off after being berated, but not much more can be done. They are protected, here, and so the only allowable defenses are flimsy and dumb. Harbor patrol will even come by and dismantle deterrents if they appear too ominous.

Sea lions suck and that is all I have to say about that except to note that 5000 lbs of methamphetamine was just taken off San Diego streets.

Coincidence?

One more thing, though, doesn’t it seem like fat shaming to opine “It’s not a great feeling to have 200 to 300 pounds roll over you…”?

Certainly not World Surf League approved messaging.

Are you superstitious?

Jeffreys Bay, South Africa is no slouch when it comes to being the stage for historically significant moments in professional surfing. Home to that picturesque right-hander that seems as it has peeled right out of our fevered dreams and into reality, the greats have left indelible marks reverberating through time and space.

Who could ever forget Filipe Toledo’s “perfect heat on one wave” in 2017?

Tom Curren dropping his own 10 on Mark Occhilupo in 2015?

Jordy Smith in 2014.

To say nothing of Mick Fanning versus The Shark.

But this upcoming offering, the Corona Open J-Bay presented by Corona 2022 has a shot at being the greatest of all time, or at least World Surf League CEO Erik Logan is hopeful that it does. Surfline, the official WSL forecast sponsor, has issued a rare “pumping” for conditions that should build through the back half of the week. Surf fans, exhausted after Brazil, El Salvador, G-Land, etc. are sanguine but also extremely superstitious and not wanting to jinx.

Much silence and knocking on wood.

ELo, though, ever bold responded to a young fan on Instagram declaring, “I’m calling it here and now. This event is going to go down as one of the greatest events in jbay history. The swell forecast is absolutely incredible. I cannot wait to watch it go down,” with a hopeful praying hands emoji.

Punching the very idea of luck right in the mouth.

Do you agree? Are we in for the treat of all treats?

More as the story develops.