14 days on Sable Island – Day 1

As part of my work as a seal biologist, I spend two weeks in June each year on Sable Island. The purpose: catch adult grey seals and attach satellite GPS transmitters to track their movements at sea, and to receive a resupply ship that will bring out fuel, food, equipment, etc for our future trips. And of course, I shoot lots of photographs!

For this trip, I hope to blog each day about my time on the island, and to post some images so you can get a feel as to what a fabulous and magical place Sable Island really is.

Today was our arrival. We were due to fly yesterday but as we were about to board the Islander to fly out (in the late afternoon/early evening), fog came in over Sable Island and our plans went rather pear shaped. Today however, was a perfect flying day.

Didn’t do much today. Unpacked our food and equipment, setup some ATVs for our use while on the island, setup our rooms and I went for a run. The run, actually, provides a good description of how unique this place.

The run is fun but tough. It is about a 6 km circular route and takes me about 40 mins because of running on sand. The first part is along an inland road (and when I say road I mean a sand path) that is no longer used and takes you from our house, through some dunes, on to the South Beach, through the main (weather) station, and back on to the South Beach. You spend some time running along the surf line before another ‘road’ appears and takes you back to our house again, through dunes and along some freshwater ponds. The scenery is gorgeous. The dunes in this area of the island are mostly small and covered in beach grass. Birds are flying around and include mergansers, several species of gull, tern, duck and sparrow. There are horses grazing on the dunes and sometimes walking the beach. And there are seals lying along the surf. So, the 6km run is quite unique. It’s an enjoyable way to keep fit; especially when the weather is good like today.