A Capitola woman says she fought off a sea lion that attacked her on Tuesday.

The incident happened around 8 a.m. between Capitola Warf and Privates Beach by Pleasure Point. A video captured via a streaming camera on the website Surfline shows the moment Heather Gray was knocked into the water.

“I was like what what’s happening it was like a horror movie,” Gray said. “The thing that was the most bizarre was that it grabbed my hair.”

She says about five minutes later, she got upright and paddled away as fast as she could while the mammal trailed her for a little.

“We’re so used to seeing them we get really comfortable with them, and I knew this wasn’t really like normal,” Gray said.

Gray said she has been on these waters for decades and never had a sea lion charge at her. She had to get tetanus and rabies shots for bites on her hands, feet and arms.

“I know that there’s a lot of sea lions that are sick right now, so my first thought was ‘Oh my gosh this was one of these sick sea lions’,” she said.

A growing number of California sea lions are suffering from domoic acid, a naturally occurring disease linked to toxins that build up in fish and shellfish they eat.

The Marine Mammal Center says it can’t confirm if it was a sea lion that attacked Gray, and also says there’s no way to know if domoic acid is what caused this animal to be aggressive since it wasn’t examined.

The center added sea lion bites are uncommon. In a statement, a spokesperson said in part:

“Some of these animals may be sick or injured, others may be curious, others pursuing nearby food resources but because we aren’t able to follow the animals. We can’t conclude why an animal may have interacted with a given swimmer, surfer etc.”

Researchers are working to try to figure out what’s causing the spike in sick animals, including if it has anything to do with climate change.

“Water temperatures are running above average, although it’s not near record territory at this point, it’s still certainly warmer than average,” said Lee Solomon, Gray’s friend and meteorologist for an independent platform that covers the Central Coast. “We don’t know if it’s causation or correlation but it’s certainly happening at the same time.”

Gray says this ordeal won’t keep her out of the water.

“I’m not scared to go back out there but I kind of want this some of this domoic acid and red tide stuff to clear,” she said.