This is the beach at Harodswick (Unst, Sheltand), where I was told was a good place to see seals. The seals around Tasmania/Australia are fur seals. They’re in the same family as sea lions. (They have that upright/triangular shape.) The seals up here are “true seals”. (They’re more log-shaped). And I wanted to see one!
So I sat down and waited. No seals, but a lot of rocks.
That rock out there in the middle of the water disappeared after a few seconds, then reappeared again and sat there, waving rocky bits around. Yeah, it’s not a rock.
So, I sat for a while taking photos of the rock. (I’d bought a new zoom lens for my camera. This means it can see things better than I can.) Then I thought I’d try walking down the road, closer to the beach you can see in the photos. in the hope I might get close enough to see something other than a black rock.
I did! I could even make out when it looked my way!
After it left, I walked down to the edge of the water and sat on a rock.
Then this little head head appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
I guess it decided I was either harmless or interesting (they apparently find humans interesting) and it hopped onto a rock.
So it lay there for a while doing seal things (and watching the human).
(Without the zoom.) Eventually it slid back into the water and left. Although not before doing a couple of leaps into the air. Showing off?
So having seen a seal so close, I too left (very happy).
But you will notice there are more photos.
Back in Lerwick (the main town of Shetland) the next day, I was waiting to go on a seabird tour when this rock popped up in the harbour.
A very pushy rock, this one.
And then at the end of the seabird tour, there was this! (They come up to the tour boat in hope of fish.)