735 February 24, 2022 Elephant Seals

Today began with a chilly RV and instant coffee. Our batteries died early this morning. We were not able to use our generator to recharge until after 10am. I took my walk on the beach.

Pismo clams.

When I got back, both the generator and the RV engine were running. Tim discovered that the generator was not charging the batteries on its own. We left it run for a couple of hours. Tim went to visit a nearby gym and then I went to get groceries. Still, the charge was very low. We had one more night at Morro Strand with no hookups. We asked if there had been any cancellations for the electric sites…but there hadn’t. We made the decision to move to a full hookup campground only a couple of miles away. It was the right choice. Maybe the batteries died down because we kept the propane furnace on overnight…

Once we were settled, we jumped into the Jeep and headed out for today’s adventure. We drove about 30 minutes north on Route 1 to the Piedras Blancas Northern Elephant Seal Rookery in San Simeon. This isn’t a zoo. The animals here are living in their natural habitat doing their own thing. I love to see animals in the wild and I was totally jazzed by this experience!

These marine mammals are enormous. The dominant males are about 16 feet long and weigh as much as 5,000 pounds. The males have been here on these beaches since December. These seals are not social creatures. They arrive individually and the males spar and fight for territory. In January, the pregnant females come in and give birth. The new pups are 60 pounds when they are born and nurse for the first 24 days and then are weaned. At that time, they weigh about 300 pounds. Then, the moms are ready to mate. The males protect harems of 20-50 females. Once females have mated, they head out to sea, leaving behind the pups. The females haven’t eaten since their arrival and they will go north and west to feed in the ocean depths. The pups lay on the beach subsisting on blubber until they are 3 or 4 months old at which time the enter the ocean and learn to hunt. Once the females leave, the males go as well, swimming to the Aleutian Islands where they will feed until it is time for their return to San Simeon. Male elephant seals swim about 10,000 miles every year…that’s as far as we drove the RV in 2021!

We took lots of pictures but these animals are the same color as sand and are not terribly photogenic . They are on this beach to mate and rest and grow. They don’t move too much because it is a great expenditure of energy and the adults haven’t eaten. The exception to this is the males…on the hunt for partners. The lesser males wait until the dominant males are busy and then the try to engage females…until the alpha males become aware and come to chase them off. These animals are really ungainly on land and move kind of like huge caterpillars. In the water, they can dive to depths of 2,000-3,000 feet to feed on deep sea fish and squid and crabs and other delicacies.

The elephant seals make a lot of noise. The males bellow, the females screech, and the babies mewl and cry. The videos are the best way to show some of their behaviors.

We had started at the viewing platform and boardwalk but then we hiked on the Boucher Trail to more secluded beach areas. We could see drag marks and flipper prints and holes where the seals had dug into the beach as they flipped sand on themselves to stay cool…but there were no human footprints.

We were surprised at how many seals there actually were…thousands! In fact, 25,000 elephant seals come to haul out here on seven miles of beach. They are not all here at the same time…but that’s a lot of seals! There are seals all along this stretch of shore, as far as the eye could see.

We also saw whales in the distance and otters bobbing in the waves. It was a fabulous day that we both enjoyed!