Travel in the dips between the dunes.” By our feet, we spotted a broken-open gull egg.The tan shell was speckled with brown, grey and black spots. Similar colours characterized the coats of the grey seals that were hauled out like boulders along North Beach, where we viewed them from Zodiacs. When we later walked across South Beach, we saw seals snuggled together by the surf, sandblasted by the ever-present wind. World’s largest grey seal colony Sable Island has tens of thousands of grey seals. The number varies by year and season. During our visit, the seals were skittish. Jonathan Sheppard instructed us to approach quietly and keep our distance. “We don’t want to alarm them. If frightened, they’ll jump into the ocean.” We watched the seals basking on sand dotted with wave-tossed surf clams. A tail popped up and then a head. The seal looked around, scratched its body with a flipper and then plopped back down again to snooze. Their groans, grunts, snorts and sighs were often drowned out by the crashing surf. On Sable Island, Adventure Canada cruise passengers met Don Bowen, a grey seal researcher at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. We were intrigued by the Crittercams and instruments that he used to track seals. He showed us a map of their foraging routes and a satellite GPS tag that he affixes to the seals. We were surprised to find seal and horse carcasses in the sand. “If you go back years later to an area where you saw a carcass, you’ll see lush growth. It becomes part of the Sable Island cycle of life,” explained Jonathan. “Gulls scavenge carcasses for food. The rest decay into life-giving nutrients.” Sable Island’s freshwater ponds also have a life cycle, as we discovered on another walk. Located on the western third of the island, the fresh water in these ponds floats over denser salt water. We watched a duckling paddle between yellow water lilies in one pond. Numerous hoofprints indicated that horses come here to drink. Seawater surges from storms inundate some ponds. Sand infill makes others shallower. Some infilled ponds become cranberry bogs. “Years ago, cranberries were a significant Sable Island export,” said Jonathan Sheppard. “Families of lightkeepers and life-saving station crews harvested the cranberries and filled empty provision ships with up to 400 barrels of the wild berries annually, to sell in Nova Scotia for premium prices.” Passengers on a Zodiac view grey seals on North Beach Grey seals on South Beach Broken-open gull egg CSANews | SPRING 2016 | 19
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