SAVING THE SEAL, AND OTHER ADVENTURES

We need a beach day.  It has been almost two weeks since we've been to the beach, and we are bordering on serious withdrawal.  My friend and I are exhausted the evening before, yet we vow to be in touch early in the morning.

"By 7:15," my friend says.

"7:30," I plead, never believing I will be awake and alert by that time. 

Turns out I'm awake around 6:00 and cannot get back to sleep for anything, so I roll out of bed at 6:40 and start my day.  I text my friend at 7:30.  Like me, she has been up for over an hour.  This is good; we make a quick plan -- She will pick me up at my house at 8:15.  Low tide is at 9:30.  We will bring snacks, walk the beach, then sit ourselves in the sand and dunk into the chilly salt water.  At the end of three hours, we'll call it a day because we both have real work to be done.

Everything goes as planned.  We head for The Wall at North Beach and for our usual spot #1913, though I've grown partial to spaces #1957-1963.  This happens as the beach terrain changes yearly, and this year, the higher numbers seem to correspond to more smooth sand and less people.  But #1913 is still prime real estate.  When we arrive, a large SUV is overcrowding itself out of space #1912, so we grab #1914, instead.  We leave everything but the keys and my semi-charged cell phone in the car so we can walk the beach.

At low tide, the entire beach and back is a round-trip trek of three miles.  This is about all I can stand and about all my friend's new knee can tolerate, so we head out with high hopes.  About three-quarters of a mile into our walk, we come across what we think is a rock.  An older gentleman with a straw hat and a fisherman's beard is standing watch and quickly brings our attention to walk around the "rock," which turns out to be a baby seal.

The seal is two or three months old, has a pink spray paint marking on its back, is resting in a puddle of low-tide sea water, its belly rising and falling in steady rhythm.  It appears to be sleeping.  (Truly it looks like its drunk and passed out.)  The gentleman assures us that he just called the emergency services moments ago when he saw the poor little thing come tumbling in with the waves, which are significant enough this morning to draw a hundred or so surfers about two hundred yards from where the seal has washed ashore.

The little seal seems perfectly fine, no signs of distress, just snoozing away in the sun with its little whiskers hanging out.  The seal reminds me of an old fat man in a beach chair with his butt in the surf.  Every time the incoming tide touches the seal, its back legs scoot up like it doesn't want to get its flippers damp.

The marine rescue girl finally shows up more than an hour after the police have been contacted.  She fills us in, for there is a crowd now, about this young male pup, how he has all his teeth, and how he is a few months old and already on his own.  She also notes the pink marking, which he earned the day before when he pulled the same stunt down at Salisbury Beach, tumbling to shore, taking a nap, then heading back out to swim along the shoreline.

For some reason, the tide is taking its ever-loving time coming in today.  Usually we are constantly moving our towels and chairs back and back and back.  But the ninety minutes we spend watching the seal anticipate the incoming tide is like slow and painful torture.  Finally, the waves come in enough, and the marine rescue girl urges the seal into the water.  In no time, he is bobbing along the caps of the waves, having a merry time, heading toward open water.

And … Salisbury.  He is heading south toward Boar's Head, which has Hampton, Seabrook, and Salisbury beyond.  Little troublemaker.  I've a feeling we haven't seen nor heard the last of this imp for the summer.

The seal adventure doesn't leave us much time for sitting in the sun, but we manage to get some rays and take a quick dip before heading home and facing our chores.  On the way home, we sightsee and take our time, hitting the Hampton bridge just as it goes up to let the fishing boats come in, and we get a good, long look at the Seabrook Power Plant, aka The Nuke.  I haven't seen the bridge go up for decades, so it's a nostalgic if not slightly annoying break.

As we pull into Haverhill, we can hear a strange sound coming in from the open sun roof.  It's a whump-whump-whump sound.  As we clear the trees and hit open road in the center of the city, we see not one, not two, not three, but four helicopters hovering absolutely still, all very low in the sky.  They are over the river and the bridge we must cross, and I wonder if something has happened at the marina or if someone has jumped off into the water far below.

My cell phone, which ran out of battery while trying to video the seal's antics, is plugged in and charging, so I drag it on to my lap (I'm not driving, don't panic) and search for breaking news.  Apparently some moron has a suspicious package or device of some kind in his car at the commuter train station.  Luckily that's the across the river from where we are going, so we proceed quickly and get the hell out of Haverhill.

We arrive back at my house, about five hours later than we left, certainly getting our money's worth out of the day.  Seals, bridges, and terrorist situations are about all I can handle in a few short hours.  When I get home, I do laundry, run an errand, clean out my glove compartment, and reorganize the cabinet under my bathroom sink, like I don't have enough to do.  Next week, when I have more time and can find important bathroom items like bandaids and fluoride rinse without wasting otherwise valuable time, I'm going to see if my dying cell phone got me any video worth saving so I can make a seal montage to send to my beach pal.

And I'm planning another beach day for next week because apparently one never knows what might happen when all you want to do is take a quiet walk along the beach to get some exercise.  You might end up saving a seal or getting caught in a police chase.  If you don't, just come with us.  This shit happens to us all the time.