Stranded Sea Lions--Do you know what to do?

This sea lion is probably okay....not excessivley skinny, not a tiny pup.

Sea lions haul out to get warm. People go nuts. They get close. Take pictures. Videos. "Would you like a photo of yourself riding a sea lion?" I jokingly asked my friend Ellen when she was here for a visit and we came upon this critter during a beach walk.
It could happen. People do crazy stupid shit.

After we passed this one, we came upon a young pup. Too skinny. I called CIMWI to report it while Ellen tried to keep beach goers from getting too close and inadvertently chasing it back into the cold water. She also tried wrangling two unleashed and romping big dogs who unfortunately chased it back into the ocean.

Here's what to do if you find an underfed, or distressed, or injured marine mammal. Rule #1: Don't get too close and inadvertently chase it back into the water. DO NOT  pour water on a seal or a sea lion or an elephant seal. They have come out of the water to get warm.

Put your local marine mammal rescue phone numbers in your phone. Call for help.

Educate yourself about global warming and its effects on marine life.

A double marine mammal morning here in Margaritaville

There were dolphins arcing in and out of the surf this morning. I walked along the sand just a a few feet from them until they outpaced me. A few seconds after I turned back, I spotted two seals, or maybe sea lions, diving through the waves. To the south god-fingers of light spread through the clouds, and to the north the coastline was swaddled in mist. The ocean itself was cellophane--blue layered over green layered over silver. A color without a name. Lucky, lucky, lucky. The word repeated itself and I listened. The capriciousness of the universe sometimes seems most evident in the weather. Superstorm Sandy wreaking havoc and misery while I make footprints in sand so smooth it looks as though some beach version of a Zamboni has whisked across it. There is no reason as far as I can tell.

The misfortunes of the east coast have caused me to pull the "earthquake protection" guy's card from my rollodex. Time to anchor my towering bookshelves and old armoires. Time to think about storing some water, check the batteries in my lanterns, and figure out where the battery phone charger went after last December's windstorm. But I am never prepared, really, when the bad stuff happens. I prefer to dwell on the smooth sand murmuring about luck and marveling at dolphins.

The heroes whose job it is to respond to disaster, the men and women whose jobs require drills to man lifeboats, escort passengers from crippled planes, race gurneys down hallways are as exotic to me as dolphins. Because my daughter C and her husband are both sailors in the tall ship world, I found myself staring at my computer screen in the wee dark hours watching the waves wash over the HMS Bounty after Sandy hit it. I thought of how many times these submerged sailors might have run the lifeboat drill, and I thought of  the hours of training required to be a Coastguard rescue swimmer or helicopter pilot. I wondered what it must be like to be in an upside down canopied lifeboat praying for rescue. Or to be washed under and not make it to the lifeboat. But I couldn't visit that scenario for long.

My daughters and I sometimes talk about having superpowers. All of my children are crazily brave in ways I cannot imagine. It seems to me that they really do have superpowers. My superpower? It might be finding lost babies. I've found three, so far, in my life and shepherded each of them back where they belonged. So, hey, all you wandering toddlers out there......never fear.

photo credit: paintingsilove.com

Do Not Change the Channel

Like many children, my grandchildren have been raised on TV and videos. Staring at a screen first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and plenty of time in between. I don't hanker for the chirp and drone of the TV in the background as company, and during visits from my son and his family, I would often turn the TV off when I found that no one was really watching it anyway. This visit things were different. I have no TV here at my new house. Yes, they came with their various small screens, but I think the ocean proved to be more mesmerizing. "Can we go back to the beach?" was the refrain of the past few days, and we grown-ups obliged.

We even took a boat ride to Anacapa, one of the The Channel Islands. A large sea lion lounged on the edge of a boat dock setting up the expectation for wildlife even before we left the harbor. Thirty minutes or so out into the ocean, the dolphins arrived. Dozens of them in the distance at first, and then scores mores, rocketing closer and closer until they were almost close enough to touch, racing along side of the boat or leaping out of the water. A couple of seals popped their heads up, too, and there were more sea lions than we could count on the rocks near Anacapa. Sea gulls hovered above, and squadrons of pelicans were so numerous they became practically became mundane.

I tried to mitigate the media's influence with my daughters, allowing only an occasional video or TV show when they were little and, starting with kindergarten they went to Waldorf School where TV, movies, videos, computers and electronic games of all kinds were discouraged altogether. I felt like I was only partially successful when I was in the thick of it all, and would have probably caved far more often if it weren't for the support of our Waldorf school community. It's so clear to me now that nature is the only real competitor for the pull of the media. And kids want to do things. Sitting means flipping a switch and waiting to be entertained. Being out in a boat on the water, chasing the waves, digging in the sand, playing outdoors, walking the dog, doing chores--there's a satisfaction to all of those things that doesn't seem to crave passiveness.

The flat blue water we were lucky to sail on yesterday was almost like a screen. And real live animals popped right out of it.  I love you, Mother Nature.