A kayaker in New Zealand got a sloppy surprise after a seal smacked him right in the face with an octopus. No, really.
Video shows Kiwi kayaker Kyle Mulinder out on the waters in south New Zealand with some friends who were testing out a new GoPro camera.
The footage, captured by Taiyo Masuda, shows the group paddling along when all of a sudden a seal breaches the water with an octopus in its mouth before whipping the cephalopod against the kayak and subsequently across Mulinder’s face.
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“@barekiwi getting octopus smashed into his face by a seal!? I’ve never had such an amazing kayak everrrrr!!” Masuda wrote when sharing the video on Instagram.
Speaking with Australia’s Yahoo! 7 News, Mulinder described the vicious fight between the seal and the octopus.
“We were just sitting out in the middle of the ocean and then this huge male seal appeared with an octopus and he was thrashing him about for ages,” Mulinder said. “He thrashed it in mid fight and my face happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
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The video shows a slightly stunned Mulinder after the quick face beating.
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“I was like ‘mate, what just happened?’” he told Yahoo! 7 News. “It was weird because it happened so fast but I could feel all the hard parts of the octopus on my face like ‘dum dum dum.’”
Seals typically feast on fish but will also prey on shellfish, squid and octopus.
According to Mulinder, the octopus managed to escape being the seal’s dinner as it latched onto the end of the kayak while the seal went on to search for other, less difficult food.
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