Borkum Holiday - Seal Watching

One day when the weather was sunny and nice (although a little cool and windy,)  We decided to go on a seal watching walk.  This was something for just Liam and I as Henrik was not a big fan of being out in the strong winds.  Liam on the other hand had been talking about seals non stop for days already.

The walk started from the town centre, which is just a few steps from the north beach.  A crowd started to gather around the tour leader.  What looked like a small group at first ended up with about 40 people by the time all had arrived.

The leader of the tour was a local fellow who was also a national park guide.  We had already done a tour of the mud flats (Wattenmeer) with him and thought he was very good.  He gave some amusing stories about the history of the island and told us a lot about the animals that we would see.  

As you can see, Liam was pretty wound up with the prospect of seeing some real live seals.  I had my fingers crossed at this point that he would not be disappointed.  I knew in his mind he was going to be jumping in the middle of a big group of seals and then hugging and patting them.  I was trying to get him to understand we would be looking at them from a distance and they were wild animals.

After a long long walk, we finally came to the beach of seals.  There was a little fence marking the line that we could not cross, giving the seals their own private beach.  We could see lots of them lounging about, with this group being the closest and easiest to photograph.  Liam also thought the seagull was pretty exciting.

Then, Liam made an exciting discovery and raced over to check something out...

A baby seal was sleeping on the beach just an arms length from the fence.  This became the highlight of the trip and was all Liam could talk about for a long long time.  He was a pretty cute Seal, but clearly very sleepy.

He did wake up with a big yawn, which was also super cure of course.

Followed by a nice look at his little seal face.  It was a great effort to keep Liam from jumping the fence and bringing him home with us.   He was pretty sure that the seal would like to live in our bathtub, where we could feed him many fish apparently.

 

After some moments, the seal grew bored with us and rolled over for some more nap.  

 All in all a fine seal walk that lived up to expectations.  Aside from not getting a new pet, I think Liam was very satisfied with the seal experience.