However, the days of hunger made me, at the sight of living creatures, first consider whether they were edible. It seemed that the other girls had similar thoughts. When several seemingly non-aggressive sea creatures appeared in front of us, we all froze, looking at each other, with a glint of almost greedy light in our eyes.
"Xiaowei, can we eat these things?" Black Spicy Girl asked me first.
"Seals are definitely edible. I've eaten them before while traveling in Norway. Seal bones are scarce and fine, the fat under the skin is thick, and the meat is delicious," Xu Xiaorong said casually, glancing at Black Spicy Girl with a somewhat boastful tone.
These days we had been suffering from hunger and cold. Upon hearing Xu Xiaorong's words, almost everyone's mouth was watering.
"I remember now. I seem to have seen in a food show that the Inuit people in Canada, generation after generation, make a living by hunting seals. There are even legends that seals were their main food. I don't know if it's true or not," Li Lin also recalled.
Hearing them say that, I also recalled some information about seals. Commercial hunting of seals is prohibited in many countries, with only Canada, Norway, Russia, and other countries allowing it. The commercial hunting of seals has been controversial and opposed worldwide. We didn't want to hunt them, but the problem was, for survival, we had to replenish our food, and the meat of these seals might save our lives.
However, I didn't let the girls act recklessly. Although seals looked docile, they were carnivores and should not be underestimated. I remembered that seals usually wouldn't actively attack humans, but once they felt threatened, their teeth were not to be trifled with. These seals were very large, with the smallest one being about one and a half meters long. I estimated their weight to be close to a hundred kilograms. Killing one would be enough for us to eat for a while.
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I asked the girls to retreat to a safe distance. Pointing the gun at a large seal, I began to shoot. The fighting ability of seals on land was not strong, and hunting them was relatively easy. I won't go into detail about the process. In the end, I successfully killed two seals, and the others escaped back into the sea.
In addition to obtaining food, I also had a pleasant surprise. The skin of these seals was very thick, and compared to the fur of other animals, seal skin had a significant advantage—waterproofing! This was perfect for making swimsuits. Considering that I would soon have to dive into the spring in the cave to find Peggy, this seal skin came in handy at just the right time!
I had to say, my luck was really good. The weather had been very cold these two days, and swimming in water close to zero degrees would cause rapid heat loss and possible danger to life. If you swam with clothes on, it would be even worse because clothes would absorb water, making you heavier. This seal skin was both waterproof and warm, truly a top-notch wetsuit gifted to me by nature.
With this food, we all felt very happy. Everyone decided to make a fire by the sea and started roasting seal meat. Seal meat had a texture somewhat like beef, more precisely beef liver, with a unique taste but not unpleasant. Of course, I didn't particularly like seal meat; I could only say that I was eating it for survival.
On this island, all kinds of regulations protecting animals were useless. Our only wish now was to survive. As everyone grilled and chatted, we also kept an eye on the sea breeze. What made us cheer was that we soon discovered that the sea breeze was blowing from the small island toward the sea. Moreover, this was a continuous and stable offshore wind. This meant that our bamboo raft could finally set sail!