Scotland III b: The sea monster that wasn't

I'd been so heavily delayed in Wick I decided to just skip the stuff I'd planned for the rest of the day and drive straight down to have dinner at Gilbert's, the aforementioned place in Helmsdale. After another good hour and a half of good food and banter I was just about to leave, when one of the new customers started showing us pictures she'd just taken of a strange animal in the water down by the harbour, just where the Helmsdale river flows out into the North Sea. The head shape of the animal was very strange, and from the way she told it, the thing had been absolutely huge. If I didn't know any better, I'd have said the head of the thing looked like a polar bear (quick, call Al Gore!).

My curiosity piqued I drove across the bridge and started walking back. Almost immediately I saw a dark head appear down below. I stood for a long time, freezing my ass off, but couldn't get a decent pic at that distance, so finally I drove down to the harbor (not that I'm obsessive or anything). There, I finally got a closer look at the thing, and (somewhat disappointed) I quickly established that it was a seal, albeit with a slightly unusual head shape. I took a couple of shots, and just as I was about to leave another seal appeared. The newcomer was smaller, had a lighter color and the shape of it was more conventional. The two swam around a bit and I managed to get some pics of them together.


The Polar Bear that wasn't:



First hellos:







Note the strange, elongated nose of the dark one:



Shake that booty:



Aww baby, where you going:





Kilroy was here:





Meh, she's not interested:



Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to sea we go:



UPDATED SATURDAY: Having read up on the subject and looked at some pictures, I am now confident the animal I saw was a Grey Seal, a species common in these parts.