Seal the Deal

January 18, 2011
My birthday was not all glimmer and glitz, because I did not have a phone. Allie was generous enough to let me use hers. She even texted Will through skype, as a surprise for me, to ask him to tell all my friends to call her phone. Unfortunately, the phone’s battery would not last and I’m sure the frustration in the US was a bit unbearable. It was hard hearing Jaimegirl’s voice for one minute and then getting cut off; talking to Candice for 8 minutes was a pleasure although would have loved for it to be longer; I got cut off from Will after 45 seconds as well. Apparently, my family called in the middle of the night but I was sleeping. That is a major frustration over here, but it is a blessing that Namibia even has service at all and that I usually access the internet through my phone. Probably my greatest struggle is feeling dependent on others calling me, because it is way too expensive for me to call outside of Namibia or even in Namibia. Nonetheless, I try to keep a positive attitude, and even though the calls are dropped every 10 seconds, the 30 seconds of conversation make it all worth it.

On the 28th, about 20 of us rented two closed pickup trucks (!) and drove up the Skeleton Coast. We stopped at a shipwreck which exemplified why they call it the Skeleton Coast. We kept on going North to Hentie’s Bay which is a smaller, more local version of Swakopmund and got some fried fish and chips to go. It took about an hour for them to make 20 fish and chips but it was seriously worth it in the end. We saw some funny shops, one that had a picture of a seal that pointed saying, “Seal Shoes.” Then, we continued north to Cape Cross to see the seal colony there.
By this point, things are looking rather deserted (tehe). To the right, no life in site, endless desert sands. To the left, there is coastline and a seemingly infinite ocean. We pull up to the office where we pay for admission. It is 3 km or so away from where the seal colony is, and so we read up on the latest seal news. There is some controversy in Namibia over clubbing, and I ain’t talkin dancin. Apparently every year the government sponsors a mass clubbing of seals (meaning they beat thousands of seals to death with clubs), which results in a good profit from their hide and export of their innards (their genitals are shipped to China for reasons I am unaware of). I feel so much empathy for these innocent, beautiful, unique, harmless creatures that I just can’t wait to see them. I want to tell them that I’m sorry about their impending, brutal death and reassure them that someday we humans will suffer the repercussions of our cruel actions, that someday we too will be at the mercy of a creature that has surpassed us in intelligence, that our careless reign will not exist forever…

We pull up to Cape Cross and are welcomed by the large crucifix, a replica of one that was placed there by a Portuguese explorer, I believe. We step out of the car and are smacked in the face by the stench of the dead and dying seal population. Not having the upmost ability to breathe through my nose, I can take it, and I walk toward the viewing deck, which is long wooden dock raised about 2 feet off the ground that stretches all around the coast, about 30 yards inland from the sea. I take about 4 steps onto the viewing dock for my first image to be a dead adolescent seal lying on the viewing dock to my right, and another one just off the viewing dock with blood from its head drying in the sand.

“Well, I know this is one place that I am NOT taking my family, “says Ryan.
“Oh my God, look at this little guy! He’s so cute!” says Allie, also known as Fran from the Nanny.

A seal colony is the perfect way to describe it. It is like when South Africa colonized Namibia, or the Europeans colonized America, they came to a spot and claimed it. They pushed everything else back so that it is solely their territory and as a result, many more moved in. All you could see was black and brown slippery, slick, hairy skin throughout the coastline. 250,000 seals. That is when I started to have a panic attack.

I wasn’t just viewing them-- I am telling you, they were all around me. Seals and baby seals had overtaken the picnic bench area behind me and were using it for shade. So much for a picnic lunch. Seals and baby seals were beneath every inch of the viewing deck, so that every step you took, every plank you applied pressure on, you would hear a cry from a seal beneath you in response. I was stepping on the seals, or were they clipping at my heels? Which one of us was the aggressor? The sounds--the moans, the cries, the whimpering, the calling of their young, the fighting of two alpha males all blending together sounded like Dante’s 10th circle of Hell. The way they were itching their damp bodies on the rocks by rubbing against them and taking their fingerlike appendages and scratching their faces constantly started to make me itch. They all seemed to be looking at me and yowling. All the baby seals were scuttling and waddling in our direction to go underneath the viewing deck. Come on Jeannine, you are a ‘scientist’. How do you not appreciate the beauty in what you are seeing? How exceptional this experience is? This is something you may never see again. Take it all in. But that’s just it. You cannot take it all in. There are too many seals to comprehend, and it is when you start to grasp the nature of the matter, it’s overwhelming. The putrid smell, the wailing, and the overpowering sight was enough for me to calmly evacuate the premises. My friend, Dan, put my experience well when he said, “Yeah, I could tell you weren’t really into it when you walked as far as you could away from the area by yourself and faced the other direction until we were all ready to go.”
Later, we were all discussing our greatest fears, and that is when I realized I have a seal phobia.

We decided we would camp out on the beach by the shipwreck. We cooked food over an open fire, cooking pasta with a meat sauce and roasting marshmallows for desert. Allie and I slept out underneath the stars together. It was very cold by the sea, so we huddled together in our sleeping bags. We awoke at sunrise, ready to go to Walvis Bay and Dune 7.