andrew
What seemed like an ordinary day for a group of paddlers took an unexpected turn when one of their mates got slapped by a sea lion with, get this, an octopus.
Caught on Camera: Sea Lion Slaps Kayaker with Octopus
It was a sunny day, just the perfect weather for travelers Kyle Mulinder and Taiyo Masuda and the rest of their group to catch some waves along the Kaikoura peninsula in New Zealand. Exhausted after a day of kayaking, the team rested, and that’s when they were met with a rather unusual scene: a giant male seal fighting with an octopus.
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They may be in the wrong place, but they certainly were there at the right time, just enough to witness an iconic moment. Right when the fight reached its climax, the sea lion walloped the octopus to Mulinder’s face—and Masuda had his GoPro action camera ready to film every second of it.
The duo was left shocked and amused, especially Mulinder who just had the most bizarre slap ever. Fortunately, he was not bruised from the encounter.
“I got slapped in the face with an octopus by the seal! Crazy, right?” Kyle shared on his Instagram post. “I’m not sure who got more surprised: the seal, the octopus, or me.”
As for the octopus, it was lucky enough to escape the sea lion by holding onto the kayak’s hull. Because of that, however, the day trippers had a hard time removing the sea creature off the canoe.
“The octopus held onto the bottom of kayak for some time before our guide was able to get it off with his paddle,” said Mulinder. “Then it swam away to fight another day.”
As soon as the footage was uploaded on Instagram, the rare yet utterly comical moment instantly became viral. To date, the video has already accumulated almost 17,000 likes on Instagram.
