Some Firsts...

So I had a few firsts for this trip/ my life this last weekend. Not all of
them are "good" per se, but they were bound to happen I suppose.

The first first was I ran for the first time in Antarctica. Unfortunately,
this wasnt a pleasant joyful jog around the neighborhood. In fact, it
wasn't even for the exercise and cardio to keep my body from getting overly
mushy. No, I ran because I was being chased.

Generally when you walk around here, you keep your eye on the bull fur
seals. They are the biggest, they're deceptively quick, and they don't
really take kindly to foreigners encroaching on their ladies. However, the
bulls get it. Other than a few slightly over agressive ones, they are
concerned about their ladies and keeping as many as possible, so if you
walk away, they dont follow. Therefore, the real ones you have to watch out
for are the ladies themselves. I found this out the hardway (although I did
know it from whats now 2 months of life here).

To stop stalling and get to the story, there is one female fur seal in
particular that is something of legend. I have heard multiple stories of
other people encountering her and only escaping by swinging their hightech
self-defense weaponry, aka a ski pole, wildly back and forth and hoping to
land a glancing blow that wont so much hurt her but at least confuse her
just long enough to get away. Think of it like throwing a dud smoke bomb at
your feet, but you still yell "SMOKE BOMB!" and then giggle as you run
away. The problem with these stories I kept hearing is nobody ever bothered
to tell me WHERE they were. Well I can tell you now, she hangs out at Playa
de La Caverna.

This weekend was our cape-wide pup census. It's exactly how it sounds. 3 of
us walk all the beaches on the cape and count every puppy we see. I ended
up counting about 2,113 puppies in total. On La Caverna, I was the second
person to count that beach for the day. The beach only has one entry/exit
point, but is this cool little rocky outcropping with a small, but
surprisingly deep cave behind it. I walked through, counted pups, checked
out the cave, no problem. On my way out, literally at the very edge of the
animals, I stopped to take one last look around for any straggler pups I
might have missed. As I turned, I saw a female coming at me. This isnt
totally uncommon, females will defend pups and often give you something of
a bluff charge, especially once you give them a good poke wiht your
skipole. The problem was, this female did not stop. She ran right over the
pole, biting her way up it. This made me jump to say the least. After
jumping a few feet away, I looked back to see her continuing to come
straight at me. You can tell when a fur seal is pissed because their eyes
get huge and all crazy looking. She had the crazy eyes. It kind of makes
you flashback to highschool when you could only dream of girls just
throwing themselves at you. They tell you about the crazy ones, but you
never believe them... until its too late...

Quickly calculating that my flimsy ski pole was unlikely to provide much
protection in this situation, I did what I only assume is a routine
occurance for the likes of Justin Timberlake, One Direction, and other
similar celebrities- I ran from some crazy chick. Unfortunately, as I
mentioned, the beach only has one way in or out, otherwise its water or
sheer cliff, and that one way out, while close to where I was, was not
exactly smooth sailing. It was more like steep, potentially slippery rocks.
I ran anyway. Fur seals, as awkward looking as they are, are surprisingly
quick on land and I couldnt get any distance between her and me as I tried
to scramble up a rock. So at one point, I turned to do what I could to fend
her off. Reluctant to turn and just start hitting her or kicking her, I
tried to use my skipole to get it between me and her and essentially push
her away/ slightly down the hill from me. The skipole broke in half. Woops.
At that point, if I fell, she would be on top of me bitey end first.

This brings me to my other first, and this one is actually a semi
surprising lifetime first.

Saturday Dec 27 2014 I got bit by a pinniped for the first time. Now
luckily I had a few things going for me. First, I was just about at the
edge of the beach when the skipole broke and was just starting to make some
headway up a snowy embankment. This meant I was likely at the edge of where
she might follow. Second, I was wearing large ski gloves. When push came to
shove at that pivotal breaking point (literally), I went for the push or
shove. I basically used what was left of my pole and my other hand to try
ot push her down. It kind of worked. She got hold of my left hand with her
mouth. To just go ahead and ruin the drama, she only bit the tip of my
middle finger and because of the gloves, didnt even break the skin. She
pulled the glove clean off, which probably gave her a sense of
accomplishment and helped end the chase. It still hurt pretty badly though
and now the end of my finger, including under the fingernail is all black
and blue. It could have been much worse though.

Female fur seals aren't huge. They are about 40-60kg (maybe 90-130lbs).
Really they are more like a medium sized dog though. That being said, even
little dogs can bite pretty hard. I'm glad that my first true bite (not
counting the puppies here that try to chew on my hands on a daily basis)
wasn't a terrible one. Seal finger is a very real bacterial infection you
can get and, while our medical supplies are very well stocked, help is
never closeby. At the same time, I am a little embarassed to say I was run
down and viciously mauled on the tip of the finger by a girl seal.

So morals of the story- always look out for the crazy girl in the crowd and
dont bring a skipole to a bite fight.