One cool thing about living at a marina is one day you're walking home to your boat and there's a new baby seal that wasn't there yesterday.
Mom quickly urges the baby to swim, and most importantly teaches him to get out again.
They took up residency on a section of dock right behind our boat, which wasn't the greatest spot because it was a thoroughfare leading to many other boats. They might have been better off on the exact finger of dock where the birth happened which has much less traffic. But okay, we get lots of seal pictures!
Not very many days later, Baby is filling out nicely and looks half as long as Mom already.
They're gone most of the day fishing, but sleep up there at night.
Jeff says harbor seals want to sleep on the dock because it's warmer. Cold water takes away their energy, so their survival is directly connected with how often they need to jump in. Whenever someone comes along, they watch, hoping the people don't get any closer because they don't want to have to go into the cold water again.
I don't want to get any closer. I'm just trying to get home to my boat home so I walk in a nonthreatening way around their corner, making soothing baby talk.
The night before last, we came home from shopping with a cart full of bags of groceries. Only the baby was on the dock. Mom had jumped in the water at the first sound of the cart. But since it turned out to be "you guys", she hopped back out of the water right in front of us and lay down!
But then, unfortunately, I casually pulled a bag out of the cart too fast and without any baby talk to prepare them. They both bailed. Splish, splish.
"That was just one grocery bag too much," Jeff said.
Or maybe they heard about that lady in Oregon who carried a baby seal home in a shopping bag and killed it.
Last night they had lain down for the night and I came walking around the corner in the dark. When they heard someone coming they both started hurrying towards the water, but then they realized it was me and stopped.
I said, "Nice puppies, good puppies, stay there, it's just me" and they stayed still and watched me walk by only five feet away.
I feel so honored!
There's a video that goes here, I'll add it as soon as I find it :-)
The challenge is to write some words, add some pictures and actually post. "Finding the video" is mastery level one step beyond that and one step beyond me. But I haven't given up!
Mar 2023 ::remembers:: oh yeah, I put it on Youtube.
