The Seals
By Maya Bella Story
I close my eyes and inhale a huge breath, and smell the fresh, salty air of the ocean. I feel the sun on my face, and open my eyes to look out on the sea that seems to stretch forever and is shining in the sun. I see my mom and my aunt eating papaya with yogurt for breakfast at the table on the lanai. I could hear people talking at the beach in the distance, and the pigeons flying by our condo. I Feel relaxed, no need to worry about homework or anything school related.
We are in Oahu, Hawaii🌺, staying in a place above Kaimana Beach. This is our last week here, and we have been here for the whole month of July. While we were here, a baby seal had been born. IT WAS SO CUTE!!! It was all black except for a little white patch on its flipper; it looked so soft and velvety. We watched it splash in the water, roll around on the sand, and play with someone's pink flip-flop. It was good that a baby seal had been born because the Hawaiian Monk Seals are very endangered. Monk seals are endangered because they only live in one place, Hawaii! anyone who goes too close to one can get sued.
I walk over to the railing and check on the baby seal, I don’t see it at the moment, “Hmmm…” I think to myself. “They must be out swimming.” I stand there and stare out at the ocean, feeling completely at peace. Then I see the mother seal and pup swimming back, and I hear the marine mammal expert telling people to go back onto the beach. The mother and baby are calmly swimming along the shore. But there’s this one person that stayed in the water.
The mother and baby were going close to them, so then the marine mammal dude starts shouting at the person, and we were pointing at the beach trying to say ,“Go over there!” and the person looks up at us and waves.
We are like, “Go towards the beach!” The peacefulness I was just feeling is gone, and we are all freaking out. Finally, the person notices the seals and starts slowly walking away. Suddenly the seal notices the person (at this point my mom leaves), and the seal starts to swim very fast at them. Then my aunt and I leave and go sit on the couch where my brother is watching TV. My dad runs out to see what is going on. I plug my ears as the person starts screaming. I hug my knees close to my chest and shut my eyes tight, hoping that it will be over soon. After maybe a minute my dad tells us that it is over. I look out and this guy with a boat comes and gets the person. As soon as they get on land the person collapses, and we can’t tell if they fainted or not. The mother seal is still eying the person, so two spectators run out to the person.
Afterward, we all sat and talked on the couch. “I'm kinda scared to go snorkeling now.” my aunt said. Later that evening we had plans to go snorkeling at a reef called Sharks Cove.
It’s time to leave and go snorkeling. On the drive, we Facetime my cousin and tell her what happened. She answers the phone after a while but her screen is dark.
“Sorry, let me turn on the light,” my cousin says.
“Did you just wake up?” my mom asked. “What time is it there?”
“About 3-ish,” my cousin replies.
“You were still sleeping at 3?” my mom says. “OK, never mind. We have a story about the seal. Go get your dad.”
“Okay.”
My uncle appears on the screen and we start to tell the story.
We debated about who is going to talk about it, and finally, my aunt started telling the story. “Okay, so we were eating our papaya…”
“And then the seal attacked the person,” my dad said, since he is the only person who saw it.
“Wow,” my cousin says as we finish the story, “Is the person going to get sued?”
“We don’t know,” my mom said.
The next day, my mom says that the attack made it to the national news and the person had been staying in one of the condos next to us for 3 weeks, so they knew that the baby seal had been born and knew to stay away. The news article also said that the person was not badly injured from the attack, they had some scratches but no puncture wounds.
This experience taught me that we need to be careful when we are around animals and that we could get badly injured or the animal could get badly injured if we aren't. Watching someone be attacked by a seal is important to my identity because where it was placed, Hawaii. Hawaii is important to my identity because I really love going there, and there are a lot of similarities and history connecting Hawaii and Taiwan, which is where my family is from.
