The Princess was slightly blue. Not quite a deep royal blue but
more a soft baby blue. Today was the day that marked
only seventeen days left on the island.
How on earth is it possible for her to leave an island that
she has learnt to call home? An island where she’s lived in the pockets of her dear Farallon
family for three and a half months. A
place that she will probably never again get to visit.
These thought troubled the Princess deeply as she sat writing
in her journal at Queens Bath and watching the skittish and adorable harbour
seals. But alas, she was not to sit around moping about what was yet to happen.
Instead she wanted to make the most of every second and appreciate every fine-tuned
work of art Mother Nature presented.
The Princess has so much she wants to tell everyone back
home, yet there is so little time and there are so few words that can encapsulate
her experience.
She could tell you about the elephant seals giving birth to
disorientated and weak pups that then grow into huge barrels of blubber, so fat
that they can barely move for their rolls of fat, often losing their balance
and rolling down the slope.
She could tug at your heart strings by telling you of little -26 pup, who after being adopted by Lodi (who also had her own porker of a pup) was weaned prematurely and is so small that she will not survive (yet she does seem happy, surrounded by playmates).
She could tell you about the extreme scrambling her and her
friends did to get to Great Murre cave, Jewel cave and funky arch and all the other
incredible intertidal areas around the island with abalones, giant anemones, sea
stars,
goose barnacles, mussels and a monkey faced eel.
She could also tell you about the necropsies performed on elephant seals and Californian sea lions.
She could describe to you the hilarious games of balderdash she and her Farallon family have played with terms such as 'duddyfunk' that have taken on a whole new meaning...
And the burrowing owls who are gracing the island with their presence (Despite the fact that they are eating all the Ashy storm petrels).
But what she will tell you about is just one simple
morning. A morning of no great importance.
No coastguard helicopter landed on
the island. 100 or so Brown pelicans did not congregate on the grass outside
the house this morning. No immature elephant seals wiggled their way up the
cart path. There were no gale force winds rattling the rafters and in fact
there were barely any gulls. Yet it is this morning that the Princess wishes to
share with you.
It was 6am and the Princess was awoken by the distant call of
an alarm clock coming from Master Ryan’s room next door. She turned over,
blissfully aware that she did not have to get up for at least another hour. 7am
arrived and after a whale fuelled dream she gets out of bed and eases herself
into the morning.
Master Ryan, Lady Jane and his Lordship Jason are out
collecting the mouse traps and so the Princess has the whole house to herself.
Kettle boils and a pot of coffee is made. She sets out with her toasted English
muffin (one half peanut butter and apricot jam, the other marmite and avocado).
Scooping up her book she steps outside into the day. The sun
is slowly creeping out from behind the hill gently warming her left cheek. The
previous day’s 30 knot winds have all but ceased to blow and she is presented
with a gentle breeze ruffling her hair.
As she begins to digest the sights and sounds of the morning
she sees a grey whale feeding off of saddle rock. Soon after, she sees another
swimming purposefully towards West end island.
After the previous night’s rain everything seems somehow
clearer. She sees every blade of grass and every pearl of barley still damp,
yet to be warmed by the morning sun. As the whales silently pass by the gulls
start to shriek and murmur, pulling grass from one another’s territory showing off to all the lady gulls. Just then a yellow-rumped warbler flits by, perching
itself on a convenient branch. A high pitched clucking is heard from an
elephant seal pup and its mother responds with her deep barking call. The
distant relentless whooping from the Californian sea lions also permeates
through the morning along with the hooting of Canada geese.
She sips on her freshly ground, hot coffee with a splash of
cream and sighs with contentment.
“I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything”
