Today we came across yet another young grey seal corpse, rolling in the surf of high tide. This one was upside down (and, it turned out, headless), so clearly dead already, which is a kind of relief in a way; sometimes getting them back in the water can be such a chore and potentially very distressing to them, and indeed dangerous for us. We are always excited when we come across them, in their various stages of disarray and indeed decay; occasionally we get a chance to cover ourselves in their wonderful scent, bringing ourselves closer to something authentic about animal life – and, it has to be admitted, death. Why is that, I wonder?
Never a month goes by without at least one or two stranded seals, the worst being the fully grown ones, which find it almost impossible to return to the sea from our beaches without quite a bit of tricky human intervention because the beach slopes so gradually here that it’s really hard for them swim away naturally – even at the highest tide – once they’ve been deposited onshore. When the tide is particularly low, which of course corresponds to the very highest tides – the world being what it is – the body count begins to multiply. It is little comfort to recall that we have nearly two thousand seals on the Farnes this year; that another little death will make no difference. We sorrow terribly over the distress, perhaps even more than the loss of life, and summon the British Divers Marine Life Rescue to help us out.
Over the last few days several sperm whales have been found beached on the east coast of this country. One by one, despite lots of kind folk trying to shoo them back into the North Sea, they have all died, and we are all saddened to see them lying helpless and gasping, uselessly out of their element. Sperm whales are our favourite cetacean and, though it would be terrible and sad, we would be thrilled and honoured to gaze up close at Moby Dick and think about his wondrous life, diving deeper than any other creature, grasping with his neat rows of peg-like teeth the giant squid we know that we will never ever see, travelling miles and miles from one end of an ocean to another. What strange journey brings them literally to our shores, beside this, the shallowest of Britain’s seas? It is as if they seek encounters out, sacrificing everything for the meeting of minds.
Though we saw the sunrise we found no whales, just an empty beautiful beach which every day brings something from its nothingness. You never know; once Uncle Johnny found a little dolphin, so we shall keep our eyes open. As someone famous once said:
Old men ought to be explorers Here and there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise.
You can see and read more about the Lincolnshire whales at these websites:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sperm-whales-skegness-beach-norfolk-a6830881.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-35400884
mr pip ponders 