A New Zealand kayaker received the surprise of his life when he got slapped in the face by an octopus that was hurled in his direction by a seal.
Travel photographer Kyle Mulinder, who posts on social media as BareKiwi, was looking for fur seals and birds during a kayak trip in Kaikoura on New Zealand’s South Island at the weekend when he saw a giant seal fighting an octopus.
“It was quite a way away and then next thing it just went deep and we didn’t know where the seal was and honestly out of nowhere … it popped up right beside us,” he told the New Zealand Herald on Thursday.
He said he wasn’t sure who got the bigger fright, the octopus, the seal or he.
The octopus – apparently relieved at having escaped the seal – then attached itself to the bottom of the kayak and refused to let go.
But eventually “the seal swam away, the octopus went the other way and we paddled off, wondering what had just happened,” Mulinder said.
– Dpa