Project: Seals

Completed!

We finally got see seals over in Island Bay (just West of Wellington CBD).  While I did capture some video of them, I didn't get any pictures of them.  My digicam battery was dead.  I did snap some mobile shots along the walk, but I apparently didn't get any seals.  Ah well, we are sure to go back.  Check out the new shots in the Mobile Pics II photo journal.

It was a good walk--4 km each way.  It was a beautiful day and a beautiful walk.  The whole time Amy and I were just amazed that we live on a beautiful island in the South Pacific.  The hills and cliffs along the coast are dramatic, but still appear scaleable--although I know dang well that I couldn't.  The ocean was at least 5 shades of blue.  There were fun surf beaches and turbulent craggy rocks.  Someday, I would really like to get some goggles and snorkel around.  We saw a few sea anemenies (no idea if that's spelled right) and one tiny exotic fish in a tide pool.  But you don't see much sea life from the shore.

The seals were big males.  This particular coloney is populated year round and is exclusively male.  It makes seeing them a lot less stressful as the bachelors don't have cubs or females to protect.  They just flop around and lay in the sun.  They are pretty big critters.  I had some image that seals would be roughly dog sized, but these were some pretty big dogs!  They had to weigh 400 pounds or more... really more small bear sized.  But oh so sleepy.

We had a bit of a picnic and walked back while the boys played along the route.  It was near impossible to keep them from getting wet.  As it turned out, it was impossible for any of use to stay dry.  You had to forge 2 shallow streams.  Hopping from rock to rock did not work.

Did I mention amazing and beautiful?  Come on down and see us! Hehe *grin*