Frolicking Seal

Today was chock full of turtles, seals and even an octopus!

Here's the little guy...

It was using its arm to investigate a hole nearby, probably in the hopes of finding breakfast.  Don't know if it did (they NEVER talk to me...) but I was happy for this shot.

The day started off with turtles on the beach and a seal offshore.

The seal was a small one and it was intimidated by the turtle taking a nap. If the link below doesn't get you there, go to youtube.com, search for octopigirl7 and you should see it..


 https://youtu.be/VaYdBKxkAPA

The fun part was that since there was a young seal, I stayed out of the water, since it hadn't found a place for a nap yet...

The seal kept peeking up at the turtle, who was napping, as if to say: Hey! What are you doing here?!

Eventually, I guess it decided to search for another spot, because it turned around and went back into the water.

Which delayed me even more, because I lost sight of it.  I didn't want to get in the water and find the seal in my face (having learned from yesterday's turtle adventure), so I waited.  But not long enough!

Once I was in the water, starting my swim, a much bigger seal showed up in the shallow water.  I swam immediately away from it, but I think it may have thought I was wanting to play because it started following me a bit.  But then, probably deciding I was not a fun playmate, it stopped and twirled in the water...joyfully frolicking!  I really wish I could have stayed around to videotape it, but my practice is to swim away and not antagonize the wildlife, so I booked it to another part of the pond.

Before I forget, just so you know, I do pick up trash.  Yesterday, I found this fishing masterpiece:

Someone had drilled a screw into the golf ball, and attached fishing line.  That line is VERY hard to cut and can get other sea life stuck on it. So I put it in my little dive pouch...with glass, scrunchies, and other odd stuff that doesn't belong in the water.

Today, I forgot my dive glove, so the trash had to go in my pouch with the opercula I found:

Yucky, isn't it?

I found some fishing lead, part of a cone shell, some glass, snorkel keeper and of course fishing line. In addition to being tough on sea life, the fishing line gets caught in the zipper of my dive pouch, so it makes it hard to put the remaining stuff in.  Quite irritating! But I'd rather have it irritate me in the dive pouch than irritate a fish.



I did find some palm trees, in this case accompanied by a seal on the beach:

The shiny seal was definitely having its rest.  And someone had roped it off, so it was protected.  

The Trunk Fish was scurrying away to escape me.  A male. 















I must admit that I did have to talk with a man who was crouching inside the "Please Don't Bother the Turtles" sign.  He apparently had a hearing problem.  And a horrible attitude.  But let's not dwell on the bad: let's mention the nice young man who asked if we could do something about a small turtle that appeared to be stuck on the rocks. I told him that the tide was rising and the turtle would soon be able to get off.  I hope!!!  It was very nice of him and his bride to be concerned...it left a nice taste in my mouth about people.  I did thank him for his concern, too.

Rock Mover wrasse

I included the Rock Mover photo above because it shows a bit of how much they twist around.  This one was bending itself in half to move back and forward.  Which reminds me, I did finally see a photo in a book of the mystery wrasse I had been seeing:  a juvenile Short Nose Wrasse!   I didn't see one today, but if I can put my computer keys on the older photo, I will add it to my next blog.  It is nice to have a mystery solved, sometimes.