About 200 harbor seals sleep in the slough in the daytime and
dine in Monterey Bay at night. Sea lions bark with their Harpo's
horns, and bask in the mud flats. They look like giant seedpods
with innocent faces. De Vogelaere tells us that the enormous
snub-trunked elephant seals are returning to Big Sur. Two were
brought in at the start. Now there are 4,000.
"They've taken over Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco," he says.
"It's justice," Earle says with a smile. "They were here first."
The next day Earle, Joanne Flanders from the marine sanctuary,
William Douros, superintendent of the sanctuary, and I go out
five miles to Monterey Canyon. We catch sight of humpback whales,
including a mother and baby, moving along like dark, partly
surfaced subs and feeding on dense and frantic krill, tiny
crustaceans. The humpback grows to a length of 45 ft. Its head is
a flat shelf; two fins extend below the body at the eyes. One
whale swims close to the boat and does a flamboyant in-your-face
with its fluked tail before descending. When a whale goes under,
it leaves a "print," a large oval of water on the surface, calm
as cellophane.
Dolphins go by in motorcycle-gang formation at a distance from
the boat. Three of them break away from the others to get a
closer look at us, and find nothing worth seeing. Dolphins have
individual signature whistles. Orcas click in distinctive
dialects. The humpbacks we see make no sound for us, but their
complex songs are said to cover the key range of a piano.
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