FISHERMAN’S FATE SEALED!
Survives 5-hour swim after falling off boat as playful mammal guides him to safety
ACALIFORNIA fisherman was marked for certain death when he tumbled off his boat into the frigid Pacific waters on a moonless night — until a playful harbor seal came along and guided him for five hours as he swam to safety!
The man bonded with the spotted sea creature and kept it truckin’ at his side by singing Grateful Dead songs to it!
Sea urchin diver Scott Thompson says he accidentally fell into the Santa Barbara Channel wearing only shorts and a T-shirt while the boat’s engine was still running.
“That’s when I realized, like, okay, we got problems,” he says. “I thought to myself, great, this is how I’m going to die. Today is the day I’m going to die!”
He flailed about, trying not to let panic sink him. “You gotta get home to your family,” he kept telling himself.
But things got WORSE when he heard a big splash!
“My heart jumped out of my chest, and I was like, f**k! A shark!”
But it was just a seal pup in search of a playmate!
“Just then, a little seal popped its head out of the water right next to me, and looked at me like, Dude! What are you doing out here?”
The pleasant pinniped never left his side!
“He was like my dog. ‘Come here, little buddy!’ I said. He’d bob up and down looking at me, then disappear under water, pop back up, and look at me,” says Thompson.
He says the seal urged him on by bumping him in the butt.
“It was like he was telling me, hey, dude! Get your ass in gear and get going!
“I was starting to run out of things to say to him, so I sang him Grateful Dead songs and told him the same corny dad jokes that I tell my kids.”
After five grueling hours, Thomson’s warm-hearted and warm-blooded “best buddy” turned him over to caring crewmembers on an oil platform — signed, seal-ed and delivered safe!