A Peek at our Lives: Water Kitties

Another fun thing we did in San Diego was check out the harbor seals that have taken over Children’s Pool Beach in La Jolla. The man-made cove was originally intended to be a more sheltered place for families with young children to enjoy the beach, since the wall protects the beach from the very strong waves that are prevalent in that area. However, harbor seals discovered a nice, peaceful beach and have taken it over as a prime spot for sunbathing. No more swimming for kids, but it’s really cool to go see the seals.

Here they are! You can see the man-made wall that protects the beach from the biggest waves.

Oh, yes, and pelicans. Did I mention there were pelicans? They’re HUGE and funky-looking birds. The kids wanted to know what the white stuff was on the rock. They were somewhat grossed out to be told it was bird poop.

It was pupping season while we were there. This is a mother seal with a nursing pup. We saw a bunch of pups with their moms while we were there. So cute! Apparently the colony had 42 pups at that point, with the potential for more. We didn’t see quite that many, but we did like the ones we saw.

There’s the end of the wall that protects the beach. We were there for about an hour (and in a minute you’ll see the pictures from when we walked around the wall) and got to see lots of harbor seals frolicking in the water. They’re hilariously uncoordinated and slow on land, but of course they’re very agile and quick in the water.

We walked around to the wall, and found that some seals that value privacy more than their friends were basking on rocks just on the other side of the wall. These are the ones that really got Simeon interested, because he could see them up much closer.

In fact, he was so interested that he gave them a name: water kitties. That’s what he called them from the time he spotted the one above until a few days later, when the girls taught him they’re called harbor seals. Yeah, these are the ones without pups…which might explain why they’re not basking with all the ones with pups…

This was Hannah’s favorite. She asked me to take a picture because it looks like a leopard. This one was inside the wall.

Those two blobs in the lower left corner aren’t seals, although they look like them. They’re rocks. I think there are at least 5 babies in this picture.