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Like a scene from the movie Jaws. My understanding is that Seal bites are pretty horrendous and spawn some nasty infections.Did you see the footage from Oahu today? Seals are done with tourists’ bullshit this year.
Here it is:
Paddling back out at North of SC reef came across two otters making lovemale took one look at me stopped and started chasing me away with day glow pink hard onWhen I was a teenager surfing at a point in Baja I had a sea lion pop up about 30 ft in front of me while I was waiting for a set. Being the little sh!t that I was I stood tall on my board and gave him a few barks. He raised himself out of the water, looking pissed off and much bigger than I'd realized, and then dove under, heading towards me. I scrambled for a small wave and managed to catch it and ride a ways down the line. There was an older guy, a friend of the family, still sitting out the back. The sea lion fully knocked him off his board and basically chased him in. I don't think anyone saw me antagonize the creature and I didn't admit to it until years later. The friend found it pretty hilarious in hindsight but said he probably would have strangled me had he known at the time. Apparently it dinged his board pretty good and scared the crap out of him.
I don't bark at them anymore. I put my head down and let them know they are the boss. Especially the Stellar Sea Lions. Those things are massive and grumpy.
i've had a couple of interesting interactions with seals over the yearsA friend of mine was chased from the water by an angry seal once. It was weird because it was a crowded day but it only seemed interested in him. He waited on the beach for a while and then tried to paddle back out and it came at him again.
Cool. They do have cooperative community behavior. I learned that one night while we were moored in King Harbor. It was really quiet and calm. The seals were sleeping in a group, on thier backs, flippers in the air. Then we noticed there was always one swimming a circle around the group, ostensibly keeping guard. Every now and then the one swimming would go and wake another and they would switch. We were kind of blown away at this behavior. It seemed...intelligent.i've had a couple of interesting interactions with seals over the years
one time out at Islas Los Coronados me and my buddies wife swam from the boat to a beach where a bunch (maybe 60?) of seals were sunning themselves and waded up to where it was knee deep. a whole bunch of pups, maybe 6, saw us and started humping over the sand towards us as fast as they could barking at us with what any dog owner understands as "I want to PLAY!!!". they got about halfway down to us before big-mama let out one big angry "NO!!!" bark and all the little pups turned around and hustled straight back to her. so we started heading back, doing a bit of snorkling along the shore and when we got out to about 10' deep water i came up to talk to Kim about something I saw and noticed that there were about a 10 sleek adult seals in a perfect 360 degree 20' radius circle spaced perfectly equidistant from each other around the circumference all with their heads up out of the water staring straight at Kim and I in the center of the circle. definitely got the feeling that the guards were giving us a decidedly unfriendly escort out of their territory. i guess it could have just been individual curiosity that ended up arranging itself in a circle? i don't know. do seal pods cooperate to protect territory? i wasn't aware they were *that* socially structured, but it sure looked that way at the time.
another time free diving had a seal outside of children's cove engage me in a game of hide and seek. or at least that's what it seemed like he was doing and i had a blast chasing him around the rocks under the water until i ran out of air then i'd go up, breath for a bit, while he darted around underneath me just like a dog saying "let's play" and i go back down and chase him around some more. that was so cool!!!! until he swam up and bit me! he started at the calf and them just chomped his way right up to my thigh. but here's the thing... he bit me just like a dog bites you when its playing - just clamping down but not breaking skin... good thing because i got a good closeup look at those fangs and they could do some serious damage! crusty din wanna play no more after that.
both of those stories ended up with me, dive knife in hand, ready to fight, knowing i was going to lose (and lose badly in the first situation) if attacked
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