‘I was scared’: Lunging sea lion interrupts cold plunge on Vancouver Island

Andrew Johnson reports on two swimmers in Victoria, B.C., who were greeted by a sea lion when they went for their regular early morning plunge into the ocean.

A pair of swimmers off Vancouver Island got more than a blast of cold Pacific Ocean water when a large sea lion suddenly surfaced beside them, and a few minutes later, lunged.

Ennio Titarenko and Andrew Wierzbicki were taking a sunrise plunge Monday at Esquimalt Lagoon, near Victoria, when the animal appeared just a few metres away. They’d set up a camera on a tripod to chronicle their regular morning ritual, and can be heard on the video disagreeing on how much danger they were in.

“He’s way too close dude,” said Wierzbicki.

“Dude, it’s OK,” Titarenko answered back.

Wierzbicki, a Prairie-born realtor, said the moment pushed him beyond his comfort zone.

“I’m a Prairie boy, the ocean scares me,” he told CTV News. “That’s also another reason why I like getting in there — do something that scares you every day.”

Titarenko, a mortgage broker and former commercial diver, was initially not at all bothered by the appearance of the mammal, which he says can be just like a puppy.

“It’s not going to hurt us – he’s probably just saying hi,” Titarenko recalled thinking.

Titarenko did not anticipate what happened next. The animal surged toward the pair, sending up a loud splash. Their friend Jessica Riehl captured the moment on video from shore, and can be heard yelling “oh my God, oh my God!”

At that point, the swim was over – the shivering men made a run for it.

“It was scary. I’m not going to lie, I was scared,” said Wierzbicki.

“He didn’t want us in the water,” Titarenko said. “We respected that. We got out pretty quickly.”

Wierzbicki says his water shoes just about proved to be his demise.

“They slowed me down and when I was trying to run out of the water, I fell, and then I literally blew out of my shoes,” he said. “They were like cinder blocks for my feet.”

A marine mammal expert at the University of British Columbia says leaving the water was the right decision, but advises people to back away slowly in any wildlife encounter.

“The best thing anybody can do, whether it’s with a sea lion or a grizzly bear, is to slowly back away. Don’t falsely assume that it’s all going to be fine,” said Andrew Trites, director of UBC’s Marine Mammal Research Unit.

Trites believes the sea lion likely lunged out of the water to get a better look at who was swimming next to him and was just as startled as the two men.

Wierzbicki and Titarenko say the sea lion appeared to also turn to leave soon after the encounter — ending a cold plunge none of the parties involved are likely to forget.