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Cleaner
Waters
May 9, 2003
The earliest memory I have of the Victoria Inner Harbour (aka 'The Gorge') is being on one of the beaches when I was 4 (that'd be 1966). I remember playing in the water & seeing people swimming. The water got pretty dirty after that for some time. Few people swam in it after that. In the last few years a serious effort to clean up the Gorge has been undertaken. The water and the beaches are a great deal cleaner now. Possibly not as clean as they should be, but cleaner none the less.
As testament to the improved water quality, an elephant seal has made his way up the Gorge & found a nice beach at Craigflower Park, to sun himself while he moults. Seals seemed to avoid The Gorge for some decades. When the clean up effort started, harbour seals were seen swimming about, but not the less common elephant seal. The juvenile elephant seal has been gallumping his way up to the same spot on the beach, everyday for more than a week now. He spends the nights in the water (according to a store owner across the street from his beach). There's a temporary fence to keep folks about 10 metres away from the seal. The fence is covered with fascinating laminated info sheets on elephant seals (apparently they can get 18 feet long & weigh as much as two cars (although I don't know what type of cars)). The signs mention not to bug the seal, as they can bite & have some diseases. I figure the signs are for the seal's sake more than the potential bite victim's. Quite a few people walked by to see the seal both times I was there. There were no human footprints on the sand passed the fences, so everyone seems to be respecting the fence. Few wild animals look more like they want someone to walk up & rub their back & tummy. I didn't though. I stayed back & took pictures. (It's a good zoom lens. I didn't get as close as the photos look.).
I have some video of the seal waving at me, gallumping up & down the beach, throwing sand onto his back with his flippers, and scratching one flipper with the other (they look to have quite dexterous flippers).
Karl