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| Pack of hungry Stellar Sea Lions |
This
post was almost the third in my “This is NOT my Life” series, but I thought
Marian deserved a post in her honor. So here’s the scene: Saturday morning,
6am, I get up, really tired, and admittedly a little spent from a park service
party the night before. The weather outside is my absolute unfavorite: the
snow-rain mix. I’m suppose to go whale watching or whaling* in Craig (an hour
away). I don’t want to go, but as I was staring out the window I thought of my
dear cousin Marian and how much she loves whales and said, f-it, I’m going. So
I drank some coffee put on all of my rain gear and made the lonesome journey to
Craig (I borrowed a car from the nice lady whose apartment I live in). By the
time I got to Craig it was sunny! The water was still pretty choppy but the
group (about five of us) decided we were going whale hunting, I mean watching,
whatever, in kayaks. Within about two minutes of being on the water I saw a
whale breaching, it was F-ING awesome. We paddled for another
three hours or so and I managed to have one of the most amazing Southeast
Alaskan experiences. At one point we were paddling, there were whales in the
distance, eagles soaring overheard (a lot of them), and I was dangerously close
to a pack of sea lions. The sea lions were absolutely following or chasing our
boats and barking at us. And let me tell you, they had terrible breath.
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| Dead Seal |
Other exciting happs included finding a
dead seal. We couldn’t identify the cause of death but it was really cool to see
a seal that close, it was simultaneously sad.
Okay, it’s exactly 20 days until Earth
Day, GET EXCITED!
* The people that I was with didn’t
really appreciate me referring to what we were doing as “whaling” apparently
that has some negative connotations. They didn’t appreciate “whale hunting”
either. Hippies, they’re everywhere.
