Pos 51:14.97S 60:36.41W
03122011 Kelp and Seals
It,s another beautiful sunny day with hardly any wind. Not wishing to waste
the opportunity and in deference to pubic health we fire up the washing
machine before motoring out the other end of the island where the Elephant
Seals live.
It's a short sail and after an hour or so (Having hung out the washing) we
spot the Seals on the other side of a great fringe of kelp that surrounds
the sand and rock shore. Boarding the dinghy we work our way shoreward in
the company of some very playful Dolphin that "Buzz" us inches from our bow.
Easing our way between the great fingers that reach out from the shore in
the rise and fall of a large swell, we look for a suitable landing site.
Finally we have to cut our way through and face the twin problems of a
shoreline knee deep in a wallowing morass of the stuff and a shallowing
rocky bottom that threatens to strand us well away from the shore.
Eventually we find a likely spot right in front of a group of Seals, sunning
themselves and looking like stranded whales.
Having landed, we now have to pull the dinghy over the rocks to get above
the tide line under the watchful eyes of several great heaps of blubber that
having given a warning snort, roll over and continue their sunning.
As we cross through the head high tussock grass to the other shore we find
evidence of their travel over, leaving easy paths for us to follow. Then we
find some buried between the tussocks sleeping in their shade. Further along
we come across a pool, in a clearing in the Tussock grass where they are
wallowing nicely in a bath of mud.
The bird life is up to its usual standard and I manage to photograph several
small birds including a wren! that popped out of nowhere.
Back aboard after struggling to launch the dinghy, dry washing is taken in,
a beer is issued and we set out to West Point Island under the Jib in a
light wind. Great flocks of Rock Cormorants give a flypast and Dolphins give
escort as we slowly sail along.
Bob The Blog
Via Satphone
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