Hey, I saw a seal today! At least, I think it was a seal.

I had walked out to this island off Cramond in Edinburgh and was hanging out, enjoying the sunshine by myself.

Something looking like a big rock (about the size of a big person, and jet black, mottled with white splotches) was a few hundred yards out, near some buoys. It was quite blockish in shape, not much resembling an animal. I figured it was a big rock. At some point, though, I noticed its head moving, and thought, "rocks don't move their heads." Stared at it for the longest time trying to figure out what it could be. I thought of:

• A big piece of wood, broken, with one part floating separately from the other,
• A dog on a raft,
• A person (covert agent?) in a strange-animal suit,
• The Loch Ness monster.

Then twenty minutes or so after I noticed it was moving, it disappeared with a big splash! There was no rock left there, but there must have been one just under the water.

I watched the water, and a few minutes later, its head surfaced some ways away for about a minute (this is when it most convincingly looked like a man in a really lousy costume). Then disappeared again and I couldn't track it.

After looking at seal pictures on Wikipedia (e.g. fur seal, eared seal, and earless seal), I feel it was the right size and shape to be a seal, although none of those picture have the mottled black-and-white color of this thing.

A swell day!