Thursday, May 23, 2013

the little fellow on the beach

We were down at the beach, having just about the finest picnic a girl could hope for, and the boys were talking about airplanes. They were sitting there talking about airplanes and tracking the airplanes that flew across the sky. I wasn't listening, I prefer boats to planes, I was looking out over the water. It was a grey evening, coming on the heals of an equally grey day, and the couple of fires that smoldered on the shore made it smell like autumn and New England.

But there we were, at the Northwest edge of the Northwest corner of the country. Jake and Seth and Tyler were wearing flannels and wool hats in mid May, after all, and we were all gazing at the black outline of the olympic mountain range as it melted against the sky in the twilight.

I've now lived here in Seattle longer than I've lived anywhere else.

When the sky was clear of planes, we poured wine into coffee mugs and went for a walk down the beach. That's when Tyler spotted a little seal swimming to shore. It was swimming like mad. We were all laughing because it's funny to see a seal gunning it towards you in the water. And then right in front of our eyes the little guy put both flippers on the sand and started wiggling up onto land.

I used to work as the most uninformed naturalist Glacier Bay has ever seen, but I do know there are some pretty strict laws when it comes to getting close to marine wildlife. But this guy was coming to us, determined, flopping and struggling through the sand until it was directly next to Tyler's feet. So Tyler bent down and Jake just happened to have an old fashion disposable camera in his pocket, and together man and seal posed for a photo.

Then the little critter turned around, pulling its smooth round body through the sand with tiny little flippers, and it slipped back into the water and disappeared.

We were all sort of speechless until Tyler said, "That seal literally came up on land just to give us a thumbs up!"

So we returned to our picnic and ate some sandy milanos, and nobody had much to say, and life was good.

6 comments:

Jacki said...

I just love this. The fires smoldering, mountains melting, wine in coffee mugs and thumbs-up seal. Love.

Angela said...

Good thing I wasn't there as I am pretty sure I would have committed some sort of wildlife crime. That little guy was so cute -- his belly just asking to be poked (gently, of course:)

Sounds like a wonderful night!

Rachel said...

Ahhh, so cute! I want to be in autumn in New England with bonfires and boys in flannel and hats RIGHT NOW PLEASE.

Jona said...

This one gets my seal of approval...BOOM!

ahoy.jenni said...

Beautiful! what a magical moment! Isn't life wonderful!

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say that your blog has changed my life. I've been reading for about five months, although I've gone back and read nearly every post, I hope that doesn't make me a creeper! ha ha, but you've inspired me to be more open about my own feelings, good and bad, to be a little more adventurous, and to try and 'hit the road' more often! thank you!!!!