On the other hand the day held
a pleasant surprise for us in store. During a walk along the coast,
Dave encountered an elephant-seal pup basking in the sun on the
pebble beach south of the OBPC. The cute fella was not more than
a year old and just took a day off.
Funny enough, I had nothing particular to do, so I grabbed my cameras
after Dave rang me and headed off towards the beach on a small elephant-seal
expedition. And indeed, the baby elephant was still where Dave discovered
him, hauled out onto the warm pebbles and basking in the nice spring
sun. When I approached him he managed to squint at me drowsily before
his eye lids proved to be too heavy and slit back shut again. For
such a young animal the pup had well developed snoring problem.
In fact, the sounds the sleeping seal produced were not only cute
but also a touch hilarious. I usually don't name animals on our
first encounter but an amazingly appropriate name suddenly popped
into my mind: 'Snorre'!
When I got out my cameras Snorre woke up and became interested
and clumsily he crawled towards me, peering curious into the camera
lens. However, apparently the curiosity could not outweigh the eyelids
tendency to slip back to sleeping mode, and just after a minute
or two Snorre slowly drifted back to sleep. What a life! Snorre
was just comfort and relaxation in shape of an elephant seal pup.
No sooner than 2 minutes after I started pictures Snorre was fast
asleep again. Another 2 minutes later, his snoring got louder, and
just a bit later gravity took over... Snorre started rolling down
the sloping beach - very slowly, in super slo-mo so to speak. I
guess he would have rolled all the way into the water if it wasn't
for the blubber layer on his back that started to fold and eventually
stopped the small giant with his bright white belly facing to the
sky. Snorre did not feel any of this; he was as fast asleep as one
could be. And not only that - he obviously started dreaming! We
all know it from uncle's dog or auntie’s cat: the twitching
of the extremities and the facial expressions of the sleeping pets,
which makes it easy to imagine that Waldo's hunting down a dream
rabbit while Mimi's climbing the tall dream tree to get that bird.
But that I would have the chance to observe a dreaming marine mammal
- not to mention an elephant-seal - paddling with his flippers probably
diving amazing dream loopings, was beyond my wildest dreams...
Snorre was so relaxed - it was contagious. The soft murmuring of
the sea played its part and I could do nothing but accept that now
my eyelids also slipped into sleeping mode. If it wasn't for the
pebble beach that proofed to be bloody uncomfortable (at least without
a thick layer of blubber acting as a natural cushion), I guess I
would still be lying down there next to the seal and dreaming of
amazing dive loopings on Snorre's back...
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