Well here’s something you don’t hear about every day. A kayaker was out on the water in South Island, New Zealand, just off the Kaikōura coast when it happened. He and his friends were having fun paddling around the area when he got the shock of his life, which was all caught on his Go Pro Hero 7 and has since gone viral.

As he was paddling about, he was suddenly slapped in the face with an octopus by a passing seal. The octopus’ tentacles really slapped him in the puss.

Man vs. seal with octopus

Kyle Mulinder posted the video to social media on Wednesday evening, never expecting the response he received.

The kayaker awoke on Thursday morning to the phone ringing off its hook along with hundreds of emails from news stations across the world, wanting to know more about the incident with the seal and the octopus.

Mulinder told Newshub that the incident happened “out of nowhere.” He said the seal rose up from the depths as if it was in a battle with the octopus. The seal was thrashing the poor octopus around and the next thing he knew, it hit him in the face. Kyle believes this might be a "world first" as he is pretty certain this hasn’t happened to anyone before.

Seal vs. octopus

As reported by The Guardian, Kyle told Seven News in Australia that he and his pals were watching the seal struggling with the large octopus close to their kayaks, which was obviously intended to be its dinner.

He said the large male seal suddenly got even closer. He said he asked himself what had just happened after he was hit in the face with all the “hard parts” of the octopus.

As noted in the video, the octopus continued to cling to the kayak after the incident, no doubt in some form of shock. It turns out Mulinder works for Go Pro and had his Go Pro Hero 7 attached to his kayak, which then caught the unusual encounter with the seal, which can be seen here.

Seals in New Zealand

As reported by the Guardian, seals had become a rare sight off Kaikōura’s coast after a 2016 earthquake caused a huge underwater landslip, which killed a lot of the marine life in the area, including abalone, shellfish and seals. Whales and dolphins were also conspicuous by their absence and scientists were afraid they wouldn’t return.

However, the waters off Kaikōura’s coastline are still renowned for the variety of marine life which is drawn there by the Kaikōura canyon, which causes a number of unusual currents to sustain the seals' and other critters' supply of food.

Reportedly seals mainly prefer fish, but have been known to eat anything they can find, including squid, shellfish, crustaceans and our new pal, the hapless octopus.