The Cape Fur Seals of Duiker Island near Hout Bay in Cape Town are suddenly on hyper active duty... Steve Benjamin called yesterday to let me know that for some reason the seals are incredibly bold at the moment and even the smallest pups are unafraid to approach really close to divers. I immediately ditched work for the day and by 09h00 was sitting in the boat anchored in the channel off Duiker Island. What followed was the best seal interaction I've yet had... only it wasn't an interaction, more like a mugging with me as the victim! One seal biting each fin, one mouthing my head, two trying to bite my strobes and my actual subject gaping at the dome port!!! Countless times I had to reset my strobe arms after they were knocked out of position by the curious seals. Once I carelessly let my hand flap around and instantly there was a pup giving it a bite. At one stage I thought it might get out of hand, some of the pups don't seem to know where to draw the line and some bites are painful, but after moving position a bit things calmed down. Altogether an amazing morning...
Regards
Jean.
