Monk Seal spotting!

Last week I was going to go surfing but the wind was too strong so I ended up walking the beach at Diamond Head. As I rounded the corner I saw a bunch of yellow flags on the beach and as I got closer I realized there was a monk seal in the middle of it.

My friend Colleen had seen one there the week before so I think it might be the same one staying nearby. I ran home and picked up Matt because I knew that he had never seen one in the wild before (I have seen them maybe 3-4 times before in my life). I told him I had a surprise and when we got back down to the beach he was really stoked to see it. It was just laying on the beach and we got a kick out of every time the water came up and splashed it. It would move and dig it's head in the sand.

We watched it for a while and wondered what it must be thinking about us humans. I read about them on Wikipedia and discovered that they were officially made the Hawaiian state mammal this month in order to raise awareness about the endangered seal. I'm so glad we got to see it and share that together. I took these pictures from the internet to show how cute they are.