My brush with death today...

Oct 27, 2007
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Okay so the thread title is a bit of an exaggeration, but I had a scary moment today.

I took a drive at 4:30 this morning to head up the east coast of the South Island for some photographs. In hindsight I should have checked the weather before going, because the photography was kind of a bust, but I digress.

So I reach a nice rocky area on the coast about 45 mins before sunrise. I figure I better stop here and scope out a nice place for some sunrise shots. I park up and jump out of the car ready to do some exploring.

I'm walking along the coast in a particularly rocky area, doing my best to keep my balance. By now it's about 30 mins before sunrise, so it's pretty dark and my eyes are just starting to adjust. I'm feeling my way around on some rocks, stumbling and probably looking like a fool.

I step over a big rock and slip a little, knocking some stones over. All of a sudden I hear this great big "HHHHIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSS!!" from directly in front of me. Like the sound a cat makes when it's angry, only way louder. I look up from the rocks I'm navigating and about 4 feet in front of me is a 100kg seal staring directly at me and looking REALLY pissed off! Well as soon as I saw the bastard I jumped and fell backwards. Now, I don't know shit about seal behaviour and had no idea what to do - all I knew is that this prick looked just like a rock in the dark and if there's one seal here there are probably many more.

So I slowly backed away, he followed me for a couple of steps then just stood his ground. I thought for sure he was going to maul me and feed me to his adorable seal children. I was prepared for fisticuffs with the wanker - thankfully (for him, amiright?) it didn't come to that.

That was my interesting moment of the day.
/blog
 

Crono

Lifer
Aug 8, 2001
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Don't mess with seals, man.

evil_seal.jpg
 
Oct 27, 2007
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You take picts?
I didn't have my camera on me at that moment (was just scoping the area out) but I came back about an hour later to get some pics. I don't have a long lens and didn't want to intrude on them (turns out there were 40-50 seals there including lots of cubs) so my pics are not great. I'll post them when I'm done processing :)
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
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Mauled by a seal.....well, I don't imagine that that would be considered to be a common cause of death.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
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Googled up some seal canines for you.. Maybe it wouldn't have been as bad as you thought.

In soviet Russia, mustache hates you..

so why did you embiggen your avatar? wanted sad azn man to be more obvious?

is he sad, or just stressed?
 

gaidensensei

Banned
May 31, 2003
2,851
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so why did you embiggen your avatar? wanted sad azn man to be more obvious?

is he sad, or just stressed?

Y0-man and I had a discussion about HDfusetalk avatars, he created some more and the asiaman one.

I abhorred the original asiaman grin so I modified it to something more stern. Now I'm all kool yo!
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,884
31,397
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Y0-man and I had a discussion about HDfusetalk avatars, he created some more and the asiaman one.

I abhorred the original asiaman grin so I modified it to something more stern. Now I'm all kool yo!

I like that look. I just remember that the avatar was tiny last week, and you recently made him bigger.

he looks more sad than stern to me.


...like he's constipated or something.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,884
31,397
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haha. just saw on the local news that they are training seals and dolphins to defend the Bay from terrorists. There was some video of a seal with a vest and camera strapped to its back.

be careful next time, GA. you might run into a terrorist-fighting seal.