A group of amateur whale watchers near Washington’s Camano Island captured dramatic footage of a seal leaping onto their boat to escape a pod of killer whales.

Photographer Charvet Drucker recorded the Nov. 2 encounter after she and her friends spotted the orca pod in Saratoga Passage.

“We were out on the boat watching some orcas, about 300–400 yards away, when the hunt began,” Drucker wrote on Facebook.

The group soon realized the killer whales were targeting a seal. Another watcher, Smith Siromaskul, said on Facebook that the pod “had been using him as hunting practice and he’d been batted up out of the water more than once.”

They shut off the boat’s engine in case the animals approached. After more than 30 minutes, the seal made a desperate move—launching itself onto their boat.

According to the group, the orcas circled the vessel for about 15 minutes searching for the seal before finally giving up and moving on.

The whale watchers eventually restarted the engine and headed for shore, with their unexpected passenger still aboard.

“Once we got closer to shore, the seal decided it felt safe enough to leave the boat and jumped off on its own,” Drucker wrote.