The OSP officer was actually really nice and left me off with a warning, but my odometer never topped 60 for the rest of the day. Around 10:30 we rolled into Hug Point where we explored rocks, waterfalls and tidepools. We also saw lots and lots of jellyfish on the shore which were fascinating. Max picked one up that was denuded of its stingers and gave it a proper burial in a tidepool. Then we ate our picnic lunch in one of the caves and watched two seagulls fight over our leftover bread. The batteries died in my camera so I don’t have any pictures past Hug Point.
Then we headed over to haystack rock, but we were too late to get to the tidepools, so we just ran in and out of the waves for a bit. Then another family told us that there was dead sea lion about 100 yards out, so we went to go check it out. It was…so beautiful. Maxwell and I walked around it several times. He kept asking me to call the animal doctor and I told him there was nothing anyone could do, the sea lion was gone and the best thing now was for other creatures to eat its body. We talked about how since that sea lion had died that there would be more food in the ocean for other sea lions to eat and maybe that sea lion’s babies were eating well right now. Max drew a picture of a baby sea lion in the sand and a sad face. I wrote “farewell” in the sand.
It had either just died when it washed up or it died on the beach this morning., and there was a small pool of blood under its nose, but its eyes were still clear, mouth slightly open. It was over 6 feet long and there was a small wound on its side that was yellowed over. Of course, I don’t know how it died but I would suspect from the blood under the nose that it got into some kind of fight with either another sea lion or a shark. Or maybe it just…died and there is no reason. I’ve never been that close to a sea lion before it was pretty cool. We were able to really look at the animal. Who knew they had little claws on their flippers? So far I haven’t found any information about it, but it’s only been a few hours.
