Along with the barn owl that I posted a while back, this little guy was Karen’s single favorite animal on the Galápagos trip. After our seven day cruise of the islands, we stayed in a beautiful camp for three nights on Santa Cruz Island — one of the few islands that is inhabited by humans. On one of the days we were there, we decided to hire a local fisherman to take us out on his boat to La Fe, a nearby island (the government allows certain fisherman to offer this service in order to supplement their income when not fishing). We had the little island all to ourselves and when we landed on its secluded beach, we were greeted by about ten or so sea lions, including this inquisitive pup.
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/200th of a second