Where walruses serenade you

I am such a romantic.

The wind was howling. Rain blew horizontally through the mosquito netting. I was perched on the edge of a cliff on a tiny island facing out to the Bering Sea.

Waves crashed against the rocks below. My tent was a virtual swimming pool inside. The bottom of my sleeping bag was sopping wet. And I was thrilled.

I was smack-dab in the middle of the longest, noisiest bachelor party on the planet.

The starring character? Odobenus -- “the Tooth Walker” -- better known as the walrus.

He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, your classic Romeo. He lolls around on the beaches all summer, snorting, belching and binge feeding. He has two big buckteeth, a thick neck and a heavyset figure with cascades of fat. With comical bug eyes, a flat nose, a bristly mouth and a “piston-like” tongue, he sports the kind of face that, well, only a mother could love.

I was going to spend the next five days watching him and thousands of chums that looked just like him (give or take a few hundred pounds) sunbathe, chow down and bellow on these subarctic shores.

Whoopee!

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A remote haven

Although Round Island is less than 300 miles, as the crow flies, from my home in Anchorage, I had spent a lot of money -- nearly $1,500 -- to get here last July. The journey was an adventure in itself.

First, I took a jet west from Anchorage to the little fishing town of Dillingham on Bristol Bay, where I spent the night because a storm moved and delayed my departure by a day. After the weather cleared, I crossed the bay in a small float plane that after a 1 1/2 -hour flight dropped me off on an isolated beach on Bristol Bay, crisscrossed with big, brown bear paw prints.

From there, I waded into the sea, hopped in a rubber dinghy in between waves and was piloted by the captain, a former sailor in the Merchant Marine, to his 40-foot boat, anchored offshore. Then we motored 30 miles over a rolling sea.

After we anchored off Round Island, I jumped overboard into the rubber dinghy again, timing my descent with the crest of the waves.

Loaded high with gear, the little craft surfed the swells, passing by a pod of the creatures with the long, wicked-looking teeth, and up onto a boulder-strewn beach. It was pouring rain as I clambered up a slippery 50-foot cliff with all my expedition gear.

At last, I was on Round Island, one of the world’s beautiful, remote places, far from the pressures of the modern world, surrounded by lots of wild creatures.

Among my new companions were two Swiss fellows who spoke a smattering of English, two photographers from Poland and New Zealand, and a biologist from Fairbanks who specialized in whale blubber research.

We had paid $50 each for a five-day permit from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to join the walrus bachelor party.

For at least half the year, the portly male walrus follows the ice pack into the Bering and Chukchi seas.

But come spring and summer, when the pack retreats north and the females are getting ready to birth pups on the ice floes, the males swim south and haul out on the rocky shores of such places as Round Island, the best-known of the seven craggy isles in the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary, protected since 1960.

Here they gather and dive in the shallow waters offshore, using their sensitive, bewhiskered muzzles and tusks to dig into the sea bottom and chow down on their favorite dish: clams. These are chased by side orders of worms, snails, shrimp, crabs and the occasional seal.

About 200,000 walruses live in the Bering Sea; perhaps 14,000 are here in Bristol Bay. The numbers are only an estimate. Biologists say it’s difficult to count walruses because they travel in the world’s most remote places, in groups or alone along the ice pack between Alaska and Russia. Aerial surveys are costly and dangerous because flights over water and ice offer no place to land in an emergency.

In earlier times, walruses’ numbers plummeted in Alaska because they were harvested for their blubber (rendered into oil), tough hides and ivory. Since 1972, they have been protected in the United States under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Today, only Alaska’s native people are allowed to hunt for them. The walrus has always been a reliable, valuable source of food. Traditionally, hides were used for boats, intestines were made into waterproof parkas, and the long tusks were crafted into art.

Odobenus rosmarus, also known as the Pacific walrus, is named for its most distinctive feature: ivory tusks that can grow up to 3 feet long.

Walruses use them to dig for snacks in the ocean floor or to haul themselves onto the ice. They rarely use their tusks for fighting, although they do like to show them off (just to underscore who is biggest and best).

Usually pink to cinnamon-brown in color, the walruses are almost completely white when they return to shore from their dinner dives -- testimony to the barely-above-freezing waters here. Once out of the sea and lounging around, they pink up again.

A gregarious lot, they wallow ashore to pile up on the rocks, often flopping their 2-ton weight down atop one another. They slap one another good-naturedly with their flippers and occasionally stab an offending buddy with their tusks as they try to muscle in on the pile-up. There they roll around, grunting, belching and roaring.

Even if the blubbery bachelors of Round Island don’t stop hearts with their good looks and fancy manners, they will surely charm you with their voices. These fellows can sing like angels. You have only to hear them to believe it.

Scientists call it “chiming” or “belling.” It has to do with the inflatable air sacs walruses have on either side of their necks, but no one is clear how they do it. Biologists say males chime to entrance their lady loves. Although they can chime on land, they do it most beautifully when swimming.

Tom Walker, a naturalist and photographer who has spent time on the island, says their chiming sounds like “a chorus of church bells.”

It’s more like “a tuning fork set on a tin plate,” says Mary Cody, one of Round Island’s resident biologists.

I was, at first, a disbeliever.

After listening to the walruses’ daylong revelry, I found it impossible to imagine that this bevy of 2-ton Bowery bums could make any sound approaching the sweetness of a love song.

That night, I twisted myself into a pretzel and tried to stay dry in the upper half of my sleeping bag. I woke at 3 a.m., shivering. Then I heard them.

First, there was a kind of a joyous swoosh and whoosh as seven walruses swam past my tent in the ocean below. Then, suddenly, the night was filled with music. I was enchanted.

I crawled out of my tent and lay in the rain, peering over the edge of the cliff to listen. All those bawdy, fun-loving bachelors on the beach had turned into an ethereal chorus, singing the sweetest notes this side of heaven. They sounded more celestial than church bells. Their song was high and melodic -- a cross between the throat music of Tibetan monks and the angelic voices of the Vienna choir boys.

Their rehearsal enthralled me.

Walruses are the main stars on Round Island, but they are not the only characters here.

While I was visiting, I saw red foxes playing on the hillside and clown-faced puffins nesting in the cliffs. On the East Cape, there was a colony of Steller sea lions, which performed slapstick antics on the rocks.

I wandered over to the East Cape one afternoon with the photographers. There, a big bull sea lion jealously guarded his huge harem of females. He busily posed, menaced, roared, then slithered over the bodies of the females to do impressive swan dives and back flips off the rocks into the sea.

Throughout all this, the females looked totally unconcerned, lying together snoozing with their flippers draped over one another.

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Breathtaking views

The trails to viewing spots are narrow and winding. Round Island -- two miles long and a mile wide, with about five miles of coastline -- rises 1,410 feet out of the ocean.

More often than not in the summer, the island can be cold, wet and rainy with winds up to 50 mph. If you are lucky -- we were one day -- and the sun peeks through once in your stay, the vistas are breathtaking.

Two biologists spend the summer here doing research and checking that visitors arriving on the beach don’t disturb the island’s creatures. They are not guides, but they’ll allow you to accompany them at certain times when they are doing walrus counts on parts of the island, such as West Beach.

The Traverse Trail offers a perch from which to watch the walruses on West Beach. It is lovely and aerobic, a steep journey not recommended for those with vertigo. At one high point, just inches away is an immediate drop-off of 1,000 feet to the ocean.

The only amenity on the island is a tiny red building with one of the world’s greatest views: the outhouse. Inside is a logbook with comments from visitors as far away as Rome and Jakarta, Indonesia. There were lots of references to paradise, beauty, serenity, wind, rain and wet feet, but also -- every once in a while -- to sun.

“Try renting rooms to a higher class. All night and all day, all they seem to do is gurgle, sputter, spit, jab, grunt, and groan.... “ one visitor wrote.

“How are two mall walkers from Minnesota supposed to get up that hill?” asked another.

“We had no problems with the weather. It was easy to get wet,” said yet another person.

So, you see, to visit here all you need is a good rain jacket, a sturdy tent and a sense of humor. And, to get in the proper spirit, plenty of chocolate -- the food of lovers.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

A heavenly noise for the hardy

GETTING THERE:

From LAX, Alaska and America West have connecting flights (three changes of planes and connecting to PenAir in Anchorage) to Dillingham, Alaska. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $768.

From Anchorage, PenAir, (800) 448-4226, www.penair.com, flies to Dillingham. PenAir has 21-day advance fares starting at $362 round trip.

Terry Johnson, (907) 235-9349, www.alaskawalrusisland.com, offers three-day guided trips to Round Island, which include accommodations on the boat for two nights, permits and meals, for $1,295 per person. He charges $400 for the round-trip boat ride alone. He can provide information on arranging a flight or boat to reach the pick-up point for the boat to Round Island.

ESSENTIALS:

Heed the warning on the sanctuary’s website: “Round Island is a remote wilderness far from medical facilities. Weather can be extreme, and visitors are expected to be entirely self-sufficient. You must be in good physical condition to get onto and around the island. If you are not comfortable with these conditions, please do not apply for a permit.”

In May and June of most years, the island still has a lot of snow.

You’ll need a tent; sleeping bag and pad; food; stove (buy fuel in Dillingham because commercial airlines won’t allow you to take it aboard); extra rope and long tent stakes to help anchor your tent against the wind; a small cooler to carry food because curious foxes can get into your supplies; and dry bags to store gear and protect it from ocean waves and rain.

Wear lots of warm layers, plenty of socks and good raingear. Knee-high rubber boots (or hip waders) are a must.

PERMITS:

Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary, (907) 842-2334, www.state.ak.us/adfg. Five-day camping permit is $50, nonrefundable; $10 for one day. Twelve camping permits are available for five-day periods May through Aug. 15, but two are reserved for last-minute visitors.

TO LEARN MORE:

Alaska Travel Industry Assn., Visitor Information Center, 2600 Cordova St., Suite 201, Anchorage, AK 99503; (800) 862-5275, www.travelalaska.com.

-- Nan Elliot