I got there as fast as I could.

With reports flying out of central Brooklyn that a live seal had
 been spotted in the Gowanus Canal -- as likely a place to host aquatic
 habitation as Mars or even Loch Ness -- I zipped over to the canal zone
 to get my own look.


See, I've written about the canal's problems periodically over the years,
 referring to it as a "corpse of water," "an open sewer," "the River Styx
 of Brooklyn" and "a really, really bad place to take a first date."


But I also covered the opening of the so-called "flushing tunnel" in 1999
 that brought "fresh" "water" into the canal. Later, I raced over after
 hearing subsequent reports of crabs -- live crabs -- munching on fish --
 live fish -- in the much-clearer water.


Buddy Scotto, a neighborhood activist who has devoted decades to cleaning
 the canal, promised then and there that we would someday celebrate the
 canal's rebirth with a swim.


Who knew that a seal -- call him "Messie" in honor of the beast of that
 Scottish loch-- would beat us to it? Or did it?


"I don't know about that seal," Scotto told me while we stood on the
 Carroll Street bridge, the only motion in the water caused by the
 methane that constantly bubbles to the surface. "I never saw it."


City Councilman Ken Fisher shared Scotto's pessimism, but, likened the
 return of life in the canal to the return of professional baseball to
 the borough later this summer.


"In Brooklyn," Fisher said, "apparently all things are possible." (He
 then made an unforgivable pun about how the marine mammal probably just
 wanted to put its "seal of approval" on the canal -- a pun so bad that I
 promised I would not publish it. Oops!).


But nearby, Mark Karwowski -- the man who became an overnight celebrity
 when The Brooklyn Paper put his seal sighting on the front page -- was
 defending his eyesight. Yes, strange as this may sound, but no one in
 the "Show Me" borough seems to believe that Karwowski, a teacher at the
 High School of Telecommunications in Bay Ridge, actually saw a seal on
 that snowy day last month.


Even though harbor seals are prevalent in New York waterways, most
 Brooklynites believe Karwowski saw a very big rat, a dead dog or,
 enthralled by a wintry tableau, a floating trash bag.


But Karwowski is sticking to his story: On that fateful day, when heavy,
 late-winter flakes were falling on the historic Carroll Street bridge,
 he was so moved by the beauty of the canal (this guy's nuts, right?)
 that he paused to look. And, could it be, there, just 15 feet from the
 bridge, a seal looking right back at him?


"That's why I say it was a haiku moment," Karwowski said. "We made eye
 contact. Then he disappeared. This was not a plastic bag. I know what I
 saw -- and I know everyone thinks I'm full of s--t." (No, not you, Mark.
 Just the canal -- although what New Yorker makes eye contact with ANY
 living being?)


No matter what Karwowski saw, everyone seems willing to exploit the fish
 tale, especially people hoping to block commercial development in the
 area in favor of parks along the "reborn" waterway. That explains the
 Brooklyn Paper's front-page gushing (as well as claiming two other
 wholly unconfirmed and unattributed sightings): "The sightings," the
 paper opined, "[are] another reason to add to the growing list of why
 retail development along the canal should be carefully controlled."


To put the matter to rest, the Gowanus Canal Community Development
 Corporation is offering $100 to whomever snaps the first photos of
 Messie.


But take note: The photo has to be better than those grainy shots from
 Scotland.


--30--

email: gershny@yahoo.com