MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 02/20/2021 Saturday Monk Seal Dailies

Saturday, February 20, 2021

02/20/2021 Saturday Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Marilyn, Team R&B, Melody and diver Michael E.

An email tonight from a scuba diver at Spitting Cave sent a clip of a seal swimming by. This was taken just before 9am, the seal had a tag and Mike could not see the number. Looks like there is a CC wound healing on its right side. Any guesses would be welcomed.

Marilyn only spent an hour at observing Rabbit Island since she spent most of her day working. She only found two seals during her time observing. Not far from the 3BS was a young juvenile seal, with no tags, and older coat and an applied N3 bleach. (Marilyn is pretty sure about the bleach and couldn't confirm was a male). Behind the waterfront rocks at SRI was an unknown, UU. Marilyn only got a view from front-on. Looked to be juvenile to subadult size with a grayish coat. The critter never showed its belly or rear flippers. Hopefully there will be better viewing tomorrow.

Team R&B💕 started their morning visiting all the usual sites and came up empty so they headed over to Paradise Cove. Much to their surprise they heard a snort and there was RN14 Kalani being chased by tourist in the lagoon. They did their best to get people to back away so the seal could haul out. It was too late RN14 swam around the lagoon, right side left side, then he decided to stop and play with the buoy. (just like Pohaku and Nanea did so many times). He played for a while, then went by Nanea's cove looked around and slowly left the area. They called the hotline to just report the sighting.

Around 9:30 they saw a seal hauling up at Tracks, they watched and determined it was RN14 Kalani who cruised the shoreline and then left. They waited to see if he would come back and haul out but he never did. They did get to see whales off shore.

Team R&B 💕 headed over to another west side location and spotted two seals huddled up on mid rocks. They were difficult to see, but they managed to get a better view. There was Kekoa Alii RK72 and R3CU.

From one site to another they found Nalu R3CX at the Bay. He was solo today.

They did find RL42 Leia was where she was yesterday at the cliffs.

Team R&B💕 went back to check on Kekoa and R3CU and when they got there this time they found

RN14 Kalani snoozing. This makes the third time they saw him today all at different locations. He was snoozing on the waterfront rocks. They heard a snort from afar and went to check it out, but didn't see anything. When they got back to Kalani they heard flopping on the rocks and thrilled to see Benny RE74. He hauled up on the rocks snorts again and went to sleep. Da Benny is Team R&B's special boy. They did see Kekoa not moving much, but that was it.

Lastly for Team R&B could see a seal hauled up at tracks from afar. They called hotline to report, they could see people crowding the seal. This happens day after day, Team R&B often feels defeated, can't say I blame them.

Melody got a message of a seal on the east side, so she decided to make it a day. Initially there was some confusion of who the seal was but it turns out to be KC RK28. And to make the drive all the more worth the ride RB12 Sadie was also there. They were snoozing side by side peacefully.

This made my day for sure! I first met Sadie when she swam by Kailua Beach in 2008 and she was just about a year old. And KC was a call I went on years ago she was hauled out on base. I was so green at the time, I didn't know what CC scars were, I was horrified seeing the "holes" on her back. Thank you Melody for taking the time to check these two beautiful ladies today!

Video from Spitting Cave