A marine science instructor got the surprise of her life Sunday when she met the giant eyes of an 18-foot-long oarfish while snorkeling off Catalina Island, Calif.

Jasmine Santana, an instructor at the Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI), was snorkeling in Toyon Bay, about 2 miles from Avalon and 22 miles off the Port of Los Angeles, when she encountered the long fish that resembles a massive snake.

"I was first a little scared, but when I realized it was an oarfish, I knew it was harmless." Santana told CNN.

Santana swam with the oarfish for 15 minutes, bringing it to the shore when fellow instructors from CIMI, a non-profit marine science education group, spotted her.

"The craziest thing we saw during our two day-journey at sea happened when we got home," Connor Gallagher, an instructor said in a CIMI release. "These islands never cease to amaze."

According to the release, it took 15 or 20 people to move the 400-pound oarfish which was dead from what appeared to be natural causes.

"I was really amazed," Mark Waddington, the senior captain of CIMI's sailing school vessel, told CNN. "It was like seeing something in a dream. It's the first time I ever witnessed an oarfish this big."

The oarfish is a deep-water pelagic fish that can grow to reach up to 50 feet and is also the world's longest bony fish.

"Oarfish are found in all temperate to tropical waters, but are rarely seen, dead or alive," CIMI said in its release. "It is believed that oarfish dive over 3,000 feet deep, which leaves them largely unstudied and little is known about their behavior or population."

Currently, ice preserves the carcass while tissue samples are being studied by marine scientists like Dr. Milton Love, a University of California at Santa Barbara fish expert. The scientists will study the oarfish's diet and DNA.

CIMI will probably keep the oarfish's skeleton to teach the 30,000 plus children that participate in the program annually.

Check out pictures of CIMI's rare find here.

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