The bizarre moment a kayaker got slapped by a seal with an octopus in Kaikōura was captured on video and shared on social media.
It all happened when a group of people were out kayaking off the coast of Kaikōura. The group are all official content creators for GoPro and had their cameras on at the right moment.
Kiwi Kyle Mulinder told 7News in Australia that they had watched the seal have a tussle with the octopus for a while.
But they could not have predicted they would end up being involved.
"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," he told 7News.
The seal then went off with the octopus and the group thought the tussle was over. They were wrong.
Out of nowhere, the seal re-emerges from the water and slaps Mulinder right in the face with the octopus.
"I was like 'mate, what just happened?' It was weird because it happened so fast but I could feel all the hard parts of the octopus on my face," he said.
The hilarious incident appeared to have put an end to the fight between the two animals as the octopus, once detached from the man's face, clung onto the kayak for a while.
The vehicle was damaged while later being towed and an $11k claim by the owner followed.