3-27-2014 Meli and Big Sister Kaikaina

Aloha Good People!  This series of photos is pretty spectacular... I won't even paraphrase Diane's experience... I'll just post her words... all I can imagine ... Diga must have been SMILING from ear to ear... What a great seal day!

When I arrived at the birth beach for my 1-4pm shift, a still wet Kaikaina(RL54) was in the middle of the SPZ and Meli(RF20) was snoozing by her favorite rock. My hope of Meli hooking up with one of her sisters was about to come true. It started with a huge sneeze from Meli at 1345, which caused a huge reaction from Kaikaina, who jerked around and started heading for the water like R5AY was after her. I think the older sisters are a little jumpy because they were chased out many times from the birth beach by R5AY. Kaikaina slowly made her way back to the beach peeking at Meli. When she hauled out and started heading up the beach Meli started following her. There was a lot of rubber necking, sniffing and flipper flapping but no open mouth aggression or vocalization. After about 5 minutes everything settled down and Meli began nudging her sister. I was surprised to see Kaikaina roll over in the nursing position and Meli start acting like she was trying to nurse. Kaikaina would tire of her sister nudging her after a few minutes and roll over and start moving away. This happened over and over again with the sisters making their way around the beach. The sisters moved down to the water's edge and when I last saw them at 1630 they seemed to be having a great time playing in the water. I think this may have been their first real interaction so hopefully they will continue to hang out together and keep Meli focused on seals instead of people.

Some visitors came by and said they had seen a seal at 2nd beach a couple of hours before and showed me a picture that could have been La'akea. When I went to check there was no seal there.  Diane

 so long!