Aggressive Harbor Seal?



Surf: 5.6 ft at 13.8 s from the W at 270°. Outgoing tide. Light off to sideshore winds.

Day 4 in the water! I’m trying to get in all the surf I can before it starts raining again. 

Today was smaller and more mellow compared to the end of yesterday’s session. I’d hoped to get to surf my favorite corner of the beach. It looked very small but doable. Only one guy out! But very suddenly, that one guy paddled back in. He happened to be parked next to us in the lot and said “be careful out there, there’s a really aggressive harbor seal! It nipped at my feet. And chased me off the spot!”

I haven’t encountered harbor seals behaving aggressively, so I wanted the spot for a bit. I saw thrashing around in the water and seal flippers splashing above the surface. I decided to paddle out in a more crowded spot for safety in numbers.

Anyone know what was up? I couldn’t tell if there was one seal or if there were two. 

The more occupied spot was about the same as it’d been the last few days, lots of waiting and mushy waves with the occasional cleanup closeout. There were a few gems here and there that worked out, but mostly I was grateful to be out in the water and to be clear of the harbor seal kerfuffle.