So, my friend (who is an awesome guy!) and I recently went out to Montauk. My family has been going out there for several generations and has managed to find a reasonable route without much traffic. We did the trip on only a couple hundred bucks. Can't argue with that price tag.
Since Awesome Guy was doing the driving, I felt like he was pretty much in control of when we set off. I did my best to warn him about which times and routes were ideal, and then just kinda waited for us to leave. We ended up heading out quite late in the afternoon, and arriving in Montauk rather late that night.
What's a poor insomniac to do just before midnight with a whole fishing village to themselves? Why, wander down the beach of course! So, I set off on my solo wobble down the shore expecting to find horseshoe crab carcasses like when I was a kid. The moonlight was washing out my vision, so I was going up to all the round dark things that I thought could be crustaceans.
I didn't find any. Just big rocks. That is, until I stepped on a rock and it made a funny sound. Kinda like a whimper. I had never encountered a whimpering rock before, so I poked it again. More whimpering. I was stumped and figured I had stepped on something that was under the sand, when I was startled by movement directly in front of me.
I looked up, and directly at a seal. I didn't want to stick around since I had no idea if the thing was sick or injured, so I tore outta there as fast as a blind-wobbling- insomniac can across wet sand. I texted Awesome Guy the highly descriptive message, 'Dude! There's a seal!' Just in case my corpse was found mauled on the beach.
When I got back to the hotel room, I described what happened and that I was gonna go call the wildlife folks. After a few attempts at finding a 24hr hotline manned by a live human, I explained my find. I'd never seen a seal in Montauk before, but figured that if the thing wasn't off course the wildlife agencies probably still tracked their migration. The thing didn't seem obviously hurt, but it wasn't moving much either and they can bite.
I went back around dawn and the seal was still there. He (she?) didn't really move, but was lifting its head. I stood and watched it a little, not really wanting to bother the poor thing. But how often are you just walking along and then suddenly inches away from a 3ft long fuzzy torpedoe with puppy dog eyes?
I waited a bit, then popped off to Naturally Good for some breakfast. It's a neat little health food joint that's open early with a me friendly menu. I got the bagel deluxe with almond cream cheese, and was blown away. I was halfway through before realizing that it was in the 'not date food' category and that I had sprouts up my nose and avocado all over my face. Satisfied and smelling of onions, I went back to the hotel to wear the rest of my breakfast in relative privacy.
Awesome Guy wasn't quite awake yet, so we chilled a bit before I went out to Jhon's for waffle fries. I have no idea if they're officially on the menu or not, but I've been ordering them since I was a kid.
After indulging in fries, we headed out to the beach.
The seal was still there and I spoke with some people that said it had been there since at least the whole day before. Since people were walking right past the thing, I went over to take a picture.
After the photo op, I went back to Naturally Good on a cream cheese quest.
I managed to find two tubs of the magical stuff. It's made by Kite Hill and is the best cream cheese alternative I've ever come across. While waiting for some lunch, I ordered an iced latte with almond milk and very much regret not bringing back a gallon of it. That coffee was ace.
After lunch on the beach, I decided to head to the huge three floor super store that sells the most amazing assortment of things. My best bug net and first book of mad libs came from there. I picked up a weird tradition of setting off snakes on the beach as a child, but the store didn't have any. I got some of the snaps that look like cigarette butts instead. They also had shoes for $7.00. Two pairs came back with me. At some point, the seal either got picked up by the tide or the authorities; he was gone by the time we set out for our next wander.
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