Avid surfers Matt Stanley and Andrew Flounder had seen seals in the distance as they’d surfed the waves off the English coast of Amble, Northumberland. But they weren’t ready for one friendly little guy who really wanted to come along for the ride.
The two surfers had been catching waves for about 45 minutes Sunday when the amiable, very enthusiastic seal attempted to hitch a ride. Luckily, the surfers had on-board cameras on their surfboards to capture the whole surfing seal encounter on video. They said that the seal tried to surf with them for about an hour, but they cut a highlight reel just a couple of minutes long, which can be seen above.
“We had just been joking about the lack of seals in the sea and perhaps there might be a shark around as the water was very warm. Then I felt a thud against my leg,” Flounder told The Northumberland Gazette newspaper. “I jumped onto the board and Matty said the color drained from my face.”
Flounder suddenly found that he was not alone on the surfboard. He had company — the surfing seal.
Now, the seal clearly wanted to take his turn surfing, but that is not say he was in any way proficient at the sport. At first, the seal climbed on to the surfboards only to slip right back off into the water.
But the adorable marine mammal was not easily discouraged . He — or was it a she? — climbed right back on the board until he got it right.
“It kept sliding off, but every time you caught a wave it would surf in on the white water,” Stanley said. “I admit we lost interest in the surfing for a bit. I’ve never seen a seal that close up, never mind one sitting on board. When we left it followed us, but the waves were not too bad so we went back in.”
The 23-year-old surfer called his close encounter with the seal a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
According to a spokesperson for England’s Cornish Seal Sanctuary, who spoke to the Mirror , seals often enjoy lying on surfboards and the sanctuary keeps a few on hand to use as seal furniture.
“They can be very friendly so something like this can happen even in the wild, but we would still advise people not to touch them,” the Seal Sanctuary spokesperson said.
Maybe the surfing seal of Northumberland can one day team up with the surfing goat of Pismo Beach, California, whose story you can read at this link .
[Image via YouTube]
