One of the many things I love about sea kayaking is that you can always have new experiences (and repeat old ones you love.) Last night I took a couple of newbies out on the water to show them strokes, draws, rudders, rafting, etc. After about an hour, I felt I had thrown enough at them for one evening, so I suggested we use the remaining hour of their boat rental time for a fun paddle (with the proviso they apply their new skills during the trip.) Earlier we had noticed large splashes about a hundred and fifty meters from where we were holding class, but they had stopped when we'd paddled towards them. Now as we reached the same area, they proved to be being made by a young seal, about two and a half feet long and roughly 40-50 pounds. In my dozen years of paddling, the standard seal reaction to paddlers has been to stare at you until you are a boat length or two away, then dive (they will often surface behind you, but dive again as soon as they realise you know they're there.) This little guy's reaction was quite different; he swam right up to and around us. After several minutes of peering at us, he determined we were friendly, and tried to board the rear deck of my boat. Since my boat is small, it was too tippy, and kept decanting him, so I rafted up with one of my companions to steady it. He soon figured out that if he got a "running start" from beneath the surface, he could rocket high enough out of the water to get on the deck. The third boat of our party joined our raft, and for the next half hour, Simon (as we dubbed him) climbed onto each of our front and rear decks, sunned himself, and investigated the dietary potential of deck lines, pumps, and paddlefloats. I had to take my paddlefloat away from him since it's the inflatable kind and those teeth would have done it no good. At one point he got close enough to one of my charges that she felt nervous, so we tilted her boat to tip Simon back into the sea. He took no offence and simply reboarded on my back deck. Of course I took the opportunity to point out to my pupils that Close Encounters of the Seal Kind was one of the reasons I had taught them rafting that evening, but I'm not sure they believed me-:) As we reluctantly headed back, Simon, having got the knack of boarding ships, treated us being separated and under way as simply the next level of our grand game, and repeatedly boarded my rear deck as I paddled (I was glad he chose me; it gave me a chance to prove to my sceptical students that braces really work!) I think there was a photo and story in Sea Kayaker a few months ago about a baby seal on the East Coast who hitched a lift on some paddler's rear deck, but this experience was new to me; anyone else on the list have a playful seal story? Philip T. N49°16' W123°08' *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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