SAN DIEGO — Mother’s Day may have been a bit of a bust for a baby sea lion in San Diego — and a bit of a surprise, too.
Michael Duffy, 48, said he was on his 41-foot Kettenburg boat “Elixir” at the San Diego Yacht Club when he awoke at 2:30 a.m. Sunday to sneezing and snoring.
He thought it might be a friend, crashing from a night out, but couldn’t find anyone. Once it got light a few hours later, however, he heard it again.
That’s when Duffy saw a 35-pound sea lion pup on another bunk, curled up like a dog on top of his board shorts.
“It was a tiny little guy, and I was kind of shocked, but he was basically asleep,” Duffy said, guessing it was a male. “Then he heard me coming, so he kind of looked up a little bit like when a dog is sleeping and you want to wake it up and it doesn’t want to wake up.”
Duffy said the pup was probably looking for his mom but found him instead.
Duffy grabbed his cellphone and took a photo of the pup, who had already jumped down onto the floor.
“You gotta go buddy, go … go, go, go,” Duffy said, as he filmed, softly coaxing the baby sea lion back up the stairs, off the boat and into the water.
Duffy, an advertising copywriter, said he nicknamed the pup “Gilligan” after the character on “Gilligan’s Island.”
