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You are here: Home / Archives for seals

seals

New Look at the Kaikoura Peninsula—Low Tide

January 22, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

During the earthquake, the seafloor rose from one to two meters above the former level. This has dramatically changed some parts of the coastline; in Kaikoura, high tide now is approximately where low tide was before the quake! There are rocks visible now that no one knew about before. We went to the Peninsula last Sunday afternoon, around low tide, to see how different it was. This is how it looked just above low tide in 2010, and up until the earthquake:

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This is taken from approximately the same place, now, at about the same stage of the tide:

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We walked out to the distant rocks, which we were never able to reach before; there was a channel deep enough to snorkel through even at low tide before the quake. Out there, we discovered a colony of baby seals flopping around on the rocks, making a lot of noise. We saw a few of the mothers come in to feed their babies after several days fishing out at sea. It was just amazing to get to see all that—and then, when we returned to the van at the carpark, we got to see a pod of dolphins jumping offshore. I took several videos of what we were treated to, and Esther helped me put them together, so you can enjoy a tiny glimpse, too.

Here are several more pictures of the Peninsula at sea level:

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Most of the family also climbed to the top of the Peninsula; I stayed in the van with the two littlest ones. Here are some pictures Esther took from up there; the first is from several years ago, and the second is the same place now.

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Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Kaikoura, Ocean, seals, Video

August Pictures

August 30, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

And here we are at the end of August again! I’ve been spending my spare time packing. I hope to do everything we can do without for a week or two in the kitchen, today. Gayle has next week off work, and we plan to load all we can into the container, then get that moved. He and the boys will also move the outside stuff, including firewood, and then next Saturday we hope to move the last of our things and the animals. I’ve been putting a lot of thought into what goes into the container and what doesn’t—what can we live without for a week or two, in case the container doesn’t get moved on schedule? It’s an interesting exercise. At this point, I’m thinking we need to keep out mattresses (but bed frames can go in), table, benches and chairs, clothing (and dressers), some food, and just basic dishes for cooking and eating. We can sit on the floor in the living room for a little while, although I do want to keep my rocker/recliner: I need a comfortable place to sit down once in awhile! Busy week ahead. Anyway, here are this month’s pictures that I haven’t already shared.

We took one, and then two lambs with us to church and Dead Boring for a couple of weeks. They’re big enough now not to need so many feeds, so we can leave them home now.One Sunday afternoon, we went to the waterfall north of Kaikoura to see the baby seals. We were almost too late; most had already gone out to sea. There were seven, though, and a couple were really putting on a show just upstream from the beach. They are so graceful in the water!

After watching the seals for a bit, we walked across the road to the beach and watched the big waves. It was high tide, and the waves were really crashing up and over a large rock right below us. Two boys had fun running out onto that rock between waves, then dashing back to safety. The cliff in the picture above was across the road, over the path back to the waterfall.

One of our boys (Simon) is getting some practice fabricating. He cut apart a broken sack bearer, then welded it back together to make this small one for his little brothers.

We have three teenagers now! We had an informal birthday party for the birthday boy (Simon), and he requested this game.

We’ve had a bad flu go through the house this week. The youngest got it first, and was down two days. Several days later I got it and was in bed for three days. Two other boys got it right after I did, and they were down for two days each. A few days later, three more got it; one was down only a day, but the other two for two days. This morning, everyone is feeling better! We’re praying that Gayle and Esther don’t get it. The downside of homeschooling (from a child’s perspective) is that sick days don’t mean days off school! Teacher Mom insists that they do at least a little! This boy did extra, though; he completed three lessons yesterday while he was down sick!

This little boy loves his books! One of his most common sayings right now is, “Can’t read it!” as he presents you with a book he wants to hear. The boy who made the sack bearer also made this cradle by cutting apart a big plastic drum and putting wooden ends on. In my opinion, it’s too tipsy for the new baby, which is who he intended it for, but the first day this little boy loved it as a place to sit and read.

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Canterbury, Cheviot, Fosters Road house, Illness, Kaikoura, Ocean, Random Photos, seals

Baby Seals at Ohau Falls

July 26, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Sunday after church we made our annual visit to the waterfall, north of Kaikoura, where baby seals play while their mothers are out at sea eating.  The baby seals swim and crawl about 1/4 mile up a creek to the pool at the base of a high waterfall.  Sometimes there will be 100 or so there; this time there weren’t nearly so many, but still a lot of fun to watch! It’s so dark back in there that it is hard to get good pictures.  If our videos turned out any good (I haven’t watched them yet) I’ll post one or more sometime soon.

Swimming in the pool at the base of the waterfall.

This is steeper than it looks! Those seals climbed about 10 feet, nearly straight up! The lower one climbed right over the other while we watched. After visiting the falls, we stopped at Ohau Point Lookout, a place where the mother seals come to feed their babies and rest after being out at sea fishing.  I had never seen a baby seal nursing before; that was fun!

Shags Aren’t those little pups cute?

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Kaikoura, Ocean, seals

Seals

July 24, 2011 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On our way home from church today, we stopped along the coast to fill our jugs with seawater (we evaporate it on the woodstove to make salt).  The waves were wild today, so it was challenging to get the water.

I got soaked when a particularly large one caught me by surprise.


What ended up working best was when Simon filled our drink thermos with water and handed it to Seth, who handed it to me, and I poured it into the jugs.

We found a deepish spot under a boulder that was partially sheltered from the force of the waves, to fill the thermos in.

He wanted me to take a picture of this special rock.

After the jugs were full, I got in the van to try to warm up, but Gayle and the boys walked around and explored the area a bit.  Several of my boys brought me beautiful little flowers–I have no idea what they are.

After awhile, Gayle came back saying, “You really have to come see this!”  So, Esther and I went where they were.  We were surprised–there were seals (New Zealand Fur Seals) all over on the other side of the rocks from where we had been getting water!

There were a lot of babies, and some bigger ones.  They were on top of rocks as high as a two-story building–how they get up there is a mystery to me!

We also got to watch some swimming in the waves.

Here we were standing two stories above the water!It was so fun, also, to watch Joe as he watched the seals!  He yells, “See!  Seals!”

Wild parsley grows along the path to the rock where we were watching the seals.

The sun came out just as we were leaving.

 

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Ocean, seals

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