Seal swims up to Irish coast guard boat to wave hello

Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Irish coast guard personnel on a training exercise captured video of their cute encounter with a friendly seal that swam up to a boat to wave hello.

The Howth coast guard posted a video to Facebook and Twitter showing an officer interacting with a friendly seal that approached the boat in Dublin Bay and started to wave.

"The Irish Coast Guard boat from Howth had a visitor while on a training exercise in Dublin Bay yesterday evening," the Facebook post said.

Donnchadh Mac Cobb, 31, of Dublin, who was taking part in the training exercises Monday evening, elaborated on the incident.

"We'd just completed a few search patterns and stopped to debrief. We hear a noise and there was this big fella sitting in the water right beside us," he told the Shropshire Star. "One of the fellas says we should head off and waved at him and then he waved back."

Cobb offered a possible explanation for the seal's behavior.

"I'm completely guessing but with the amount of people on the pier and kids waving down on them then there might be a bit of imitation going on," he said.