Deep Diver of Arctic Seas - Voyages of the Destiny's Dreams

Deep Diver, the 4,000 elephant seal, swam through the twilight zone of the sea near the Arctic, where sunlight disappears in the water's depths.

The Ice Age melt raised the seas where Deep Diver swam.

He had a magnificent nose like the beginning of an elephant's trunk.

It flopped up and down when he tossed his head. Deep Diver liked to inflate it with air to make it even larger. Then he could look more threatening when he faced rivals in battles on beaches.

He and his kind were sensitive to patterns, currents, and flows in the ocean system.

Each year he swam a long journey from the Arctic to the warm southern beaches, and then back to the cold waters again.

Ten thousand years after the life of Deep Diver, a woman named Anya, the Storyteller of the Blue Lantern and the Keeper of Ancient Wisdom, hunched over a journal on a wooden sailing ship called Destiny’s Dreams.

The ship was sailing through an archipelago of islands on a warm, sunny day.

Sounds of Deep Diver's descendents roaring, grunting, and squealing floated across the water from a beach when the ship sailed past. Large mounds like boulders were scattered on the sand, and some of them moved. Chunky, massive figures clashed in battle when the males fought over the females.

She wrote,”My great-grandfather, Storyteller of the Star Creatures, told me this story from the ancestors.”

Over a hundred years after she wrote those words in the early 1800s, her journals were found by children in the attic of the Mystical Lighthouse Keepers’ House. A child called Emily read out loud to three other children next to a window, looking out at the sea.

Time seemed to float like a fog while they listened. An old lantern with blue etched glass reflected light from the window and glowed on the children.

Emily continued to read.

The seas called Deep Diver's relatives “ocean sentinels.” He and his ancestors reflected transitions in the ocean world.

A mile beneath the ocean, near the Aleutian islands off the Alaskan coast, he did not feel the frigid water.

He wore six inches of blubber like a garment in cold weather to keep him warm in the Arctic Waters.

Earlier that year, Deep Diver was gliding south toward the west coast of the continent that would someday be called North America.

Down in the depths of the water near the Arctic, his inherited animal instincts awoke in him like messengers. Other instincts guided him like wizards.

If they would talk they would say,“Its time to meet up with mates, see new babies on the beach, molt and lose this old skin, practice beach roars, and fight with other males over who gets the females.”

The ocean was 400 feet lower thousands of years ago because water was trapped in ice from the ice age.

Deep Diver headed to the warmer waters of the land protruding from what someday would be called the California Central Coast. His life was solitary. But he would gather a harem of around 50 females and fight off the other males to compete for his beauties.

Someday, his destination would be in the form of islands. But 10,000 years ago it was one solid piece of land, before the ocean’s level rose higher, covering the lower portions of land.

When the water trapped in the ice age melted the seas would rise. An archipelago of 8 islands would protrude from the ocean someday. But now, in Deep Diver’s world and time, there was a connected land mass there. It was part of the mainland jutting out into the sea.

A mile above Deep Diver and to the north, a land bridge connected Asia to the place that someday would be called Alaska. Other creatures who walked on two legs explored and hoped to find a better life and satisfy their curiosity.

The creatures waved, pointed, talked, and made plans.

“Lets keep walking.

“No, lets get on the water with our boats.” Some decided to travel by land and others by sea. Over thousands of years some of their descendents went south.

The groups would discuss their plans and goals.

“We need to follow the warm temperatures and the other animals.”

“There are more plants and they grow bigger the farther south we go.”

Deep Diver swam on his solitary journey all the way from the Arctic to the area that would someday be called the Channel Islands of the California Central Coast.

His eyes lit up when he saw the warm, sunny, beaches covered with brown mounds like boulders. The female elephant seals had arrived. It was so different here from the glaciers and ice on the far north coasts. Some of the females on the sand were already birthing their babies.

“Boom. Splash.” His 4,000 pounds, the largest seal on earth, could cut through ocean waves.

“Thwump. Thwump.” His body would bob over the coast.

“SSShrrrrrk. SSSShhhhrrrrrk.” The sand scraped the beast's belly.

Then, “Hhhhrrrrrnk….Huh…Huh.” Snorts and grunts blended with the sounds of waves breaking, ripples in tidepools, and sea winds.

Huffing and deep breathing burst into the air. His body dragged itself with 2 foot long front flippers and smaller back flippers. He lumbered across beaches, roaring and grunting, to his female harem.

His massive neck was covered with battle scars from the teeth of other male elephant seals who fought him over who got to have females. But the thick blubber beneath the skin protected him.

Energies flowed. Instincts flashed at the sight and smells of the females. If translated into words he would think, “There they are. ”

In the bright sun, his deep sea eyes adjusted. Then he snorted.

“’What’s that?”

Two legged creatures without fins were on a sand dune overlooking the beach.

Deep Diver's brain tried to interpret what he saw and translate it into action.

“I don’t understand,” he thought. “’What are those?”

A roar began building in his throat.

"Someone is threatening my territory." If he could translate his feelings into human words that is what he might say.

He inflated his huge, floppy elephant nose to make it even bigger and shook his head. Rage began glowing in his eyes.

His front flippers flexed their muscles. Then all 4,000 pounds of Deep Diver rocked forward across the sand toward the people on the sand dune, as fast as a human can run.

“AAAaaaaaa.” Screams and shouts filled the air.

The crowd scrambled through the deep sand, falling, crawling on their knees, slipping backwards, and hollering.

Deep Diver smiled to himself.

“I showed them.”

He turned and his eyes swept over the females on the beach. A nearby male approached the nearest females.

Instincts blazed inside Deep Diver. He tossed his giant, floppy elephant snout in the air, roared, rocking across the beach to do battle with a rival.

“Hronk. Graaauuuuh.” He warned another male to get out of this way.

His deep grunts and roars on the beaches startled animals, and perhaps even some plants and rocks too, up to a quarter of a mile away. Even the sea grasses trembled when the vibrations from his roars hit them like ocean winds.

After the ice age melt, when the ocean rose, Deep Diver's descendents still roared on the beaches of the warm latitudes.

But the solid piece of land where Deep Diver used to grunt rock across the sand was now an island archipelago.

The rising ocean, from the melting sea ice of the Ice Age, covered the lowlands and only the higher elevations rose above the ocean.

Descendants of the people who crossed the frozen bridge from Asia to the area later called Alaska roamed the archipelago of the California Channel Islands.

If they returned to the Aleutian Islands to retrace their ancestors' path, they would find it no longer had a solid pathway. The frozen bridge was melted. The seas had risen from the additional water. There were now islands an Ice Age path to walk.

In the dark attic of the Lighthouse Keeper's House Emily finished reading the story written over a hundred years before by Anya the Storyteller of the Blue Light.

"It is getting late. The attic is too dark to read. I see the blue lantern is no longer glowing." The other children nodded at her words.

Then they jumped up, rocking back and forth like Elephant Seals, and roaring like Deep Diver.

“Hronk. Graaauuuuh.” They ran down three flights of stairs to the dining room.

Several adults, sitting in comfy chairs, looked up and smiled.

"What have you children been up to upstairs?"

The only reply was "“Hronk. Graaauuuuh.”