She took a job at Pier 39 over 30 years ago. Then, the sea lions came. How Sheila Chandor went from planning to stay six weeks to staying for three decades

Sheila Chandor, vice president of marine operations at Pier 39, has worked there for over 30 years. When she first arrived, the sea lions hadn't taken over the marina yet. Sheila Chandor, vice president of marine operations at Pier 39, has worked there for over 30 years. When she first arrived, the sea lions hadn't taken over the marina yet. Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Buy photo Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Image 1 of / 38 Caption Close She took a job at Pier 39 over 30 years ago. Then, the sea lions came. 1 / 38 Back to Gallery

When Sheila Chandor started working for Pier 39 back in 1985, dealing with a colony of blubbery, barking sea creatures wasn't part of the job description. Then, one day in 1989, just after the Loma Prieta Earthquake, a natural disaster of another kind took everyone by surprise: a sea lion invasion of the pier.

"I think we went from a couple hundred to about 1400 in the space of about six months," said Chandor, who is the vice president of marine operations at Pier 39 — aka the harbormaster.

Likely drawn by an exceptionally large herring run in the San Francisco Bay that year, one brave sea lion, dubbed "Old Flea Collar," hopped onto the K-Dock at Pier 39. The rest followed quickly.

Chandor, who had no experience with working at marinas before she came to Pier 39 (her previous job was working at a British prison as a psychologist for eight years), never intended to stay working at the marina for longer than six weeks. But surprises like the sea lions have kept her there for 34 years.

"There really isn't an average day," said Chandor. "It's always different. It's always fun. But sea lions are probably the highest level of fun part."

Chandor's office sits right on the pier, with windows overlooking boats docked on the water and the barks of sea lions ringing in the distance. Today, it's calm on Pier 39, with curious tourists and 800-pound roly-poly marine mammals coexisting peacefully. But it wasn't always like this.

"It was a little bit crazy at the beginning with people and animals all in the same place," recalled Chandor.

Some of this chaos is captured in photos on the walls of the marina office: one shows a huge brown bear (part of a Russian circus passing through) gazing out at the sea lions from the pier, its paws resting on the railing. The marina employees also weren't quite prepared for the mess — and stench — the creatures would bring.

"I've got old photos and videos of me in a little yellow slicker, boots and a scrubbing brush, and I'm out there scrubbing the docks," said Chandor. "We didn't have everything set up in this very sleek way that we do now."

Unsurprisingly, many of the marina's tenants were not pleased when the stinky, noisy creatures first arrived nearly 30 years ago. They received many bizarre suggestions for the sea lions' removal, including an offer from Jacques Cousteau to bring in a mechanical great white shark.

On the other hand, some locals became very invested in the sea lions getting to stay. While the Bay Area recovered from damage post-Loma Prieta, the booming success of tourism at the pier with the arrival of some new animal neighbors offered a beacon of hope.

"It was a nice animal story at a time when everyone was struggling to get back on their feet after the earthquake," explained Chandor.

Chandor was part of the decision-making process for what to do about the sea lions. In California, sea lions are a protected species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act — but still, the marina would have been permitted to drive them away humanely. However, the right decision became clear once the Marine Mammal Center got involved.

"We saw very quickly that it was a good thing," said Chandor. "After talking to the Marine Mammal Center, we saw how we could keep it as a natural attraction, but still try to contain it."

Today, sea lion-related mayhem has died down at the marina. An overlook has been installed for tourists to view the sea lions safely, as well as signs educating people about their behavior. Chandor oversees a team that does regular washdowns of the docks with a sea water pump, repairs the floats the sea lions sit on when they break apart, and works with the Marine Mammal Center to rescue injured animals. One member of the team even walks the docks daily to shoo sea lions away from the tenant areas.

Still, every day is an adventure.

"I mean, sometimes it's like being the mayor of a very small town," explained Chandor. One minute she's helping a tourist retrieve expensive sunglasses from the marina, another she's answering a panicked call from a concerned bystander that a sea lion is in distress.

She's even dealt with incidents of people jumping into the water, or a guest on the dock who accidentally stepped on a sleeping sea lion. Apparently, the man and the animal were equally alarmed — they both screamed.

"You know, we're on the San Francisco Waterfront — we have our fair share of crazy," Chandor laughed.

Although the sea lions sometimes present a logistical nightmare, she wouldn't have the marina any other way. At times, their numbers have dwindled when some natural phenomenon drives them to go further out to look for food.

But they always come back. And as long as they're around, it's a good sign for the environmental state of the bay — they're "like the canary in the coal mine," said Chandor.

Plus, as an animal lover, the sight of hundreds of massive, languorous mammals napping, wrestling, and barking up a storm mere feet away from a bustling urban setting never gets old.

"Whenever I walk by there, I get as equally entranced by it as I always have," said Chandor.

Madeline Wells is an SFGate editorial assistant. Email: madeline.wells@sfgate.com | Twitter: @madwells22