Lions down on the job as a sea cave guide.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

EDITOR'S NOTE: Today, Bob Welch heads to the coast in the second of his six-part Sunday series on doing other people's jobs.

FLORENCE - I'm snaking down Highway 101, trying to remember the gestation period of a sea lion, when I suddenly realize I'm late for work.

The Steller sea lion can reach more than 1,500 pounds ... the Sea Lion Caves were discovered by William Cox in 1880 ... the caves are 12 stories below the gift shop.

"It'll never happen again," I tell my boss upon arrival at this tourist stop 11 miles north of Florence.

Hod Johnson, the Sea Lion Caves' general manager, agrees, given he's offering me only a one-day contract.

The 55-year-old Johnson, a man with the greatest office view I've ever seen - Heceta Head and the Pacific Ocean beyond - outfits me in a Sea Lion Caves hat and jacket and sends me 208 feet down to be a guide.

Aren't uniforms cool? They instantly make people think you're somebody important when you're actually just a columnist.

I'm still cramming for the "final" in the elevator - this is the largest sea cave in the world - when I get hit with my first question. Gulp.

"Excuse me," a man says, "can you tell me where the bathroom is?"

Whew, I survive that one but the questions soon come harder and faster, crashing on me like storm waves. "What kind of birds are those?" (`Pigeon guillemots.') "Is that sea lion dead?" (`No, just dozing.') "If a sea lion dies, what do you do?" (`What's with your death fixation, lady?')

Just kidding on that last answer, but you do get some weird ones. Like the woman who wondered why the cormorants all congregated on, as she called it, "that white stuff."

"Guano," I said. She looked puzzled.

"Poop," I said. "They don't congregate on it. They create it."

"Oh."

THERE ARE, I discovered, two kinds of tourists: cynical people who expect the sea lions to be Oregon's answer to Flipper (`Don't they do anything?') and curious people who appreciate nature's nuances (`Amazing - the bulls swim clear to Alaska and back?').

My mentor was Joe Evins, an 81-year-old ex-World War II Flying Tiger who knows this cave like Detering knows orchards. "You get all types," he says. "One man was convinced the cave was man-made, another that the sea lions were mechanical and moved by remote control. I think he'd been to Disneyland too many times."

I masked my meager understanding of sea lions with humor. "So why aren't there more sea lions in the cave?" one man asked me.

"Most spend the summer months on the rookery outside, sunning themselves," I said. "It's breeding season - they're like college kids on spring break in Daytona Beach."

I enjoyed meeting people from all over - Wyoming, Alaska, Maine, Florida, Japan and India. And I found myself reminded of the treasures we have here in Oregon.

"We don't have anything like this in Utah," said a woman, watching surf crash outside the north cave, the Heceta Head Lighthouse beyond.

With my shift over came the hard part: giving up my Sea Lions jacket and hat. Decked out in such, people treated me with a certain respect, as if assuming I actually knew what I was talking about.

Columnists aren't used to that.

Seals of Approval Rating

Environment: Not that anybody's to blame, but caves are dark. North opening and view of Heceta Head save the day. C+

Challenge: If you like sea lions, people and Trivial Pursuit, this job is like dying and going 208 feet down to heaven. B+

Boss and co-workers: Johnson cuts me slack despite my being 15 minutes late. Evins is the Jacques Cousteau of sea caves. A-.

Customers: A few whiners, but most upbeat, curious and fun. B.

Overall: I had fun, fun, fun till Johnson took my jacket away. A-.

Next week: Driving the "pit cat" tractor in the garbage of the Glendale Transfer Station.