Somehow I had gone fifteen years in Hawaii without seeing a monk seal in the wild. How I had managed this I will never know, perhaps just bad luck.
Been there, done that.
Not just one monk seal, but three. And a great view, watching as the seals played in the water then pulled up on the beach to rest for the day.
A group of us from work had headed for Mahaiʻula beach for the day. This is a beach I had been past a thousand times, but never been to. We usually head for a beach more up north, closer to home. I should have been here before, it is a truly beautiful beach. The road in is terrible, and likely to stay that way to keep the tourist crowds away.
We had barely stepped onto the beach that we spotted the seals. At the far end of the beach there was clearly something large in the water that was not human. We dropped our stuff and walked down to see the seals.
There were three, just a few feet out into the water, two obviously larger and one smaller seal. They were playing and swimming about, generally being seals and taking no notice of us humans onshore.
They wandered the length of the beach. At one point a large seal just layed in the surf right at the waters edge, letting the small waves roll it back and forth. After watching for a while we returned to our gear on the beach to setup chairs and organize our day.
Of course one of the larger seals decided to pull up on the beach… Right in front of us.
We had multiple chairs, a table, coolers, snorkel gear… A full setup for a day at the beach and quite the pile. The seal has first rights to the beach, thus we yielded and moved everything over to the next tree and shady spot of sand.
We did not move that far away, beyond the legal seal zone, but close enough to watch the seal, or hear it when it sneezed in the sand. Mostly the seal dozed, breifly rousing when it needed to move up out of the rising tide, or was joined by another seal on the spot we had vacated.
Not long after we had moved a volunteer showed up and established a cordon around each seal on the beach. Signs and ropes warning visitors to give the seals space and not to disturb their slumber. The volunteer was busy as unknowing tourists walked right past the signs and needed a little education in Hawaiian beach etiquette.
Later in the day I had a chat with one of the volunteers keeping an eye on the seals. She explained that the two larger seals were both female and regulars on this beach. The spot we had first chosen to put our stuff was the spot for one of the seals, exactly where she usually pulled out to sleep. It is a nice spot, apparently monk seals have the same standards as humans in picking a spot on the beach.
The smaller seal was a two year old male who had been born here to the larger female he was sleeping beside. He had a reputation of being a nusiance to the older females, odd as usually monk seals maintian no relationship after weaning.
All of the seals looked sleek and healthy, apparently having no issues finding food. Though one of the females had expereinced a miscarrage and bad infection a couple years back that had needed a stay in the local wildlife rehabilitation facility to deal with.
One more expereince crossed off the Hawaiian to-do list. The photos here suck a bit, taken with a cell phone while staying well back from the seals. I will have to take a telephoto lens back one of these days and get some better photos.
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