When Gerry Baker saw a huge animal running across the sand in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, he knew he had to investigate.
“I was super curious about it, so I ran to try and catch up,” Baker told The Dodo.
As he got closer, he almost couldn’t believe his eyes. The animal he’d spotted was a fully grown deer running into the ocean and crashing among the waves like an excited kid at the beach.
“You could tell he was having a good time,” Baker said. “There were moments where it looked like he was intentionally crashing into or even trying to ride the waves. I kind of got the sense that he had done it before because he had gotten out of the water so easily.”
At first, Baker thought the deer might be in the water as a means of avoiding the many humans on the sand. But soon he confirmed that the deer was simply enjoying the water for the same reasons any of us would.
“There were a lot of people on the beach, and I thought he chose the water to avoid them,” Baker said. “But the police on beach control pulled up and told me that it’s not uncommon for [deer] to jump in for a little bit. After the conversation, I was able to just watch him and was quite surprised at how well he was doing, despite how the waves were rolling in that day.”
Eventually, the deer hopped out of the water and continued down the sand, happy to have enjoyed a dip.
Though the moment was a shocking one for Baker, for the deer, it was just another day at the beach.