There’s a seal where we sea swim that has a habit of following/investigating swimmers. Mate of mine bashed it while swimming a couple of weeks back, said he absolutely shat himself.
I saw it today but it kept a decent distance, hopefully getting clumped has made it a bit warier of these strange neoprened creatures that keep appearing in its territory.
My wife has this massive fear of seals. When we used to surf of the gower the seals used to love popping up and investigating, and she capped herself every time and proceeded to get out! 
Lots of stories of them taking nibbles out of fins and the like of divers, just investigating.
My mates and I had this long standing bet when we were teenagers that we’d all chip in 50 quid to the first person to bop a seal on the nose where we used to go rock jumping etc. Suffice to say, nobody got close! Ha ha
some years ago me and Mrs FB went for a sea swim off Eastbourne where we lived at the time. one minute swimming along nicely, and next Mrs FB is freaking out big time.
turns out that as she put one of her arms in on the downstroke, her hand went onto the head of a rising cormorant coming up from a dive. bird pops up next to her face - they look each other in the eye and Mrs FB screams and the bird fucks off into the sky. I have no idea what the chances of that are but pretty remote I would guess.
also a Mrs FB story. snorkelling around a Greek isle she dives to collect a nice looking shell and stuck it into her bikini bottoms to take it back to shore. what she hadn’t realised was that there was a hermit crab in said shell - which promptly tried to crawl out of her bikini bottoms giving her some nips on the way! hasten to say she hasn’t stuck any shells in her pants since!! .
Came across a snake while on a highland mountain last week. Sh@t myself. It slithered off into the heather. Korea was worse, I was out running and saw a small branch in the way that for whatever reason I decided to stamp on. Well it wasn’t a branch, it was a snake and it erupted a microsecond before I trod on it. Sh@t myself completely and took the rest of the day to calm down.
Another interesting aside - Gaelic has some fantastically descriptive animal names.
“Muc Mara” - literally - pig of the sea -
dolphin/whale
“Smugairle Róin” - literally - seal snot - jellyfish
Personally I’d just call a jellyfish “fecker beag” or “fecker mor” depending on whether it was a little or a big fecker…
Where did you get sucked by a catfish? Asking for a friend
That must have taken some flushing down the toilet 
OMG, I’ve just retired from OW swimming 
EFF DAT.
My worry isn’t that there are large snakes in Cheshire rivers. Its more that a large cold blooded water dwelling reptile couldn’t survive in a Cheshire river. Hazmat suit for next swim i think.
They touched on this in Attenboroughs Perfect Planet with the Iguanas in the sea. There bodies shut down if they are in the cold water for more than 30 minutes.
Think cold blooded animals need the enviroment to warm them up - hence why you always have those special heating lights for your indoor lizards and such.
Maybe it’s just sleeping
So if you live in the UK, better to be a cormorant
Maybe its MarkieRs pet 
The poor bugger looks like it has a full stomach.
I just dread to think what it’s full of 
Sailfish swim caps
Which one of our northern Tritalk buddies are you referring to Memphis? 
One of my damsels in my tank tries to eat my hand every time I do any cleaning in there! 
Nooooo make that thought go away 
Ozzies
"Sweeney described the man as a “fit individual” who had been training at the time.
“He’s quite a robust individual who insisted that he’d be back swimming there soon, so he’s a braver man than I,” he said."
