Surf's up, little dude.
Matthew Stanley and Andrew Flounders, two surfers off the northeast coast of England, were recently joined by the grooviest seal pup ever to grace the sea. Though the little pup wasn't the most agile surfer, it more than compensated for its inability by sheer effort alone.
"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," Flounders recalled of the encounter to the Northumberland Gazette. "I jumped onto the board and [Matthew] said the color drained from my face ... [then] the seal just leapt on board and was really, really friendly and kept following us, even out of the sea when we left.”
A YouTube video of the encounter shows the pup repeatedly attempting to climb on board, then losing its balance and slipping off almost immediately.
Stanley, 23, described the encounter as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience" to the BBC, adding the seal, who was with them for nearly an hour, would "surf in on the white water" every time they caught a wave.
While contact with the seal seems like it was unavoidable in this case, the International Fund for Animal Welfare recommends people not touch or handle seals, even if they may be in distress.
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