The weather this past weekend was golden. Calm, sunny and temperatures around 10C to 12C. It was what this summer should have aspired to be. We took advantage of it, berry picking, drives and hanging out outside.
Late last week we discovered that a large iceberg that had been grounded out at Nuvua (one of the points at the mouth of Victor Bay) had moved down to the foot of Victor Bay, and now seemed to be grounded there. Knowing that you were probably missing seeing iceberg photos on every second post, I took advantage of the great weather and Travis, Hilary, I and one of Travis' friends headed over to Victor Bay in the afternoon. Leah was off picking blueberries with a friend.
We walked down to some rocks on shore and I started taking some photos, but soon just sat enjoying the day. After a summer of largely overcast, dull, breezy days I suddenly realized just how nice it was to sit, take in the fresh air and feel the warmth of the sun. Hilary was beside me, nattering way and showing me her prowess at scrambling up and down rocks. Travis and his friend were a little down the shore throwing and skipping rocks on the flat ocean.
I looked over at the two of them and realized that they were not alone, for just a little beyond them, barely off shore, a Ringed Seal was calmly watching them. They were caught up in their game and hadn't noticed. I tried to catch their attention, waving and pointing at the seal but they were busy, concentrationg on the task at hand. Finally Travis' friend saw me, and turned to see what I was pointing at, alerting Travis. Travis saw the seal, and then screamed at me so I wouldn't miss the seal. The seal, unconcerned at this point (a rather foolhardy behaviour for a seal up here), now slipped below the surface.
The two boys joined Hilary and I and we went into search mode, waiting for the seal to resurface. Travis, bless his heart, showed his practical side of the sighting. While I was thinking photo op, he was thinking lunch, telling me "We should tell Ettuq (grandpa) to come and shoot it". Of course, as the photo op had presented itself I had the wrong lens on the camera and missed the opportunity.
After some searching ("Over there.""No, over there""Tavva") the seal resurfaced, but farther off shore. Fortunately it surfaced inline with the iceberg, providing me with yet another opportunity to post another iceberg shot.
Here are a couple of cropped images of it.
When it again slipped below the surface, tired of watching us watch it, it stayed down for a long time. We needed to get back, to get to the store and so we turned for home. We were not, however, finished with seal. For on the other side of the small penisula we were on was a second seal. We went down to the shore to continue our watch, but it too stayed down for a long time.
Reluctantly we left for Arctic Bay, looking over our shoulders, much like this Snow Bunting, who shared our Seal Watch.