One of the great things about living in Vancouver is that we are so close to nature and marine wildlife. Over the past weeks I have seen quite some seals on the small beach close to our house, and last week I even saw an orca (killer whale) while sitting on our terrace in the late afternoon.
A few days ago I heard that an elephant seal had chosen Ambleside beach for its yearly moulting process, meaning that it sheds its fur and skin there during a one-month period. So when we were doing our Sunday afternoon shopping in Ambleside today, we decided to go for a walk on the beach to look at the seal.
The area around the mammal is closed off from the public, because it can be quite dangerous if you come too close. The municipality put up signs saying that an elephant seal can bite and is more dangerous than the usual seals we see in Vancouver’s waters. But you could still come quite close to the seal, even though it was a bit hard to recognize because its color is similar to the color of the sand.
Seeing this animal on the beach was totally worth the small detour, even though Elaine preferred the playground across the road from the seal. In case you would like to see it, the elephant seal is on the beach next to the hockey fields, just west of 13th Street in West Vancouver.
Whats this got to do with Shanghai?
I moved from Shanghai to Vancouver in March (see several other posts that I wrote over the past couple of weeks). It’s a good reminder to change the text and header for the blog in the near future, I can understand that it might be confusing.
Yeah this isn’t Shanghai stuff. Better move to a Canada aggregator and rename your blog. You’re just taking up bandwidth.
A beached elephant seal in Vancouver. What with the prevailing conditions, almost certainly a washed up, out of place, over weight white blob carried here from China’s toxic waters. Sad.