A strong southeast wind whips the waves along the Malaspina Strait this morning. With a fire warming my office, and a hot cup o’java in my hand, I can see the breakers rolling in and swallowing, momentarily, the rocks along the shore. As I watch the storm, I can’t help but wonder where the hundreds of diving ducks, loons and gulls that usually dot the calmer water have gone.
Incredibly, a young buck walked out from the forested land beside us and has waded out into the surf. I have watched dear on our beach many times before, emboldened by the fence I constructed along the shoreline that keeps our dogs from doing anything more than barking at them. Watching dear walk over the rocky shore is like watching a woman in stiletto shoes try to navigate an icy sidewalk. In this instance, the young male has made his way through the white foamy surf, and now rises and falls with the rolling waves as he swims out into the strait.
I have to believe, unless this creature is suicidal, that his destination is Texada Island which lies roughly six kilometres distant with rough water and strong currents between. His head is now little more than a dot in the white crested waves, although he seems to have the good sense to tack against the current and hold to a pretty straight line.
The oceanfront land upon which our farm is situated provides the closest mainland point to Texada Island, the largest island in the Strait of Georgia, stretching fifty kilometres (31 miles) in length along a northwest, southeast axis. For that reason I suppose it makes sense that if an animal wanted to swim to the island, it would start from this point. The question is why would it want to?
Perhaps the young buck has the exploring blood of Magellan, Da Gama, or Columbus. Maybe like Sir Edmund Hillary he is swimming to Texada because, “it’s there”. If the latter were true, you would think that he might choose a calmer day, rather than risk such a swim during this storm.
I suspect that like most young virile males of any species, he is swimming over hoping to “get lucky”. If that is true, the question that comes to my mind is: what caused him to think that he would find a female on an island so far away? It’s not like his he might have met a young doe on line, or could chat her up by texting.
I can no longer see the buck’s head without the aid of binoculars, but I have to think that given his progress he is going to make it, and he has won my admiration.
As I pour my second cup of coffee, I marvel at what we don’t know about the world around us. Life goes on around us, and so often we are too busy, too engaged in our new electronic world, to really notice just how amazing life really is.

1. Wendy Says:
   March 9th, 2010 at 9:58 pm

   Thanks for sharing this great story GW. I find observing(and photographing) wildlife to be a great stress reducer. Turn off the tv’s, computer’s, phones and blackberry’s and just go out and look at what is going on around you. Cheers