The sea had slammed him down and then receded into ebb. Bathers sat on both sides at a safe distance from the carcass, only a curious golden retriever came to sniff.
A good animal, you could tell by everything. After inhaling the smell of putrefaction, he quickly hopped back to his owner to run after a spotless, manageable ball.
The seal was on our left. To the right we looked out on Terschelling, the Wadden Sea was full of white sails. The east wind did its best: the beach was strewn with jellyfish. Most pink, a few blue.
Son (7) was already shocked by a hollowed-out crab shell, so I kept silent about the seal. He watched in horror as two girls dug jellyfish from the sand and took them with them. He got so jittery that he went after it to ask if he could help.
,,Do you have a phone with you?” A woman wrapped in a bright beach towel walked towards me. Someone had to remove the seal, she thought, because it was high tide again and soon the sea would run off with it. “If you call, they will take it away.”
It sounded like she knew about it, yet she didn’t know which number I should have. Maybe the VVV of Vlieland? She walked away and left the responsibility with me.
I first spread a sandwich for my child and between the sweet smoke of the melted chocolate spread I thought I smelled a hint of seal.
“What do those girls actually do with the jellyfish?” I asked.
“Throw back into the sea.”
No matter how slimy and annoying: an animal remains an animal and as a child you want to save it.
The tourist office was only available on working days and the nearby beach pavilion was not answered either. I left it there. Actually, I couldn’t think of a better destination for a dead seal than the steadily advancing salt water.
I looked at the industrious jellyfish scoopers and suspected that they too, young as they were, surely knew that a human being could do nothing against the will of the sea. You just had to keep yourself busy in the meantime.
Mike Chest
Maaike Borst writes in her column Voorbijganger about everything she encounters along the way. In her personal life, in her work as a newspaper reporter and sometimes just on the street. She has been writing columns for Dagblad van het Noorden for years. This is her first in MORE, succeeding Rosa Timmer.