I used to crew on a tall ship called the Lady Washington back when I lived in Seattle. We were primarily an education vessel, and our focus was teaching traditional sailing. In the summer, a lot of our time was spent sailing around Elliott Bay doing sunset cruises and fun things for the touristas. This was ever so delightful to me because I got to flirt with lots of women. Somehow, climbing up and into the rigging, hauling bowsprits, halyards and gathering sheets while balancing on two inch manlines 60 or so feet above the deck was somehow quite alluring to beautiful young ladies.

At the end of a sail, we would have to pull alongside the dock where we moored and send someone out on a splatline, which was a rope which hung from the fore course yard on the starboard side of the boat, swinging over the deckrail and down onto the pier(dock) to catch the mooring lines and run them around the cleats to tie the vessel up.

I was manning the line on one afternoon, returning from a trip around the bay, and as we neared the dock, I swung out over the deckrail and out over the side of the boat. Anyone who's ever been to Seattle knows that seagulls there are quite plentiful, and inhabit pretty much ever level surface in the city, and poop. All. Over. Everything. (but I digress) Just as I was about at the apex of my swing out, I startled a seagull which had been sitting on the dock. He flew upward and right at me. I was just about to let go the splatline and drop to the deck when the seagull and I met...in midair. Caught me dead in the middle of the chest, and fell to the dock, ran a little then flew away in a flurry of feathers and squawking. I let go of the rope, landed on the dock, stumbled a bit, lost my balance and then rolled over once, jumped up as if nothing had happened, and caught the incoming mooring line just in time to drop it over the deck cleat and tie the boat up.