We had a submarine, boomer, that was rammed by a whale and they had to bring it in for repair. I always enjoyed seeing the whales outside Monterey.

My nephew (the U.S. Air Force Academy graduate and now Air Force pilot) rode / straddled a decent sized croc at a crocodile farm somewhere in Asia (in Thailand, I think). He and his wife also had a tiger straddle / lay across their laps, and bottle fed it. I'm looking at the picture now and while I am not sure how old the tiger was, from the look of it, it must have weighed at least as much as my nephew and his wife put together.

In both cases, no doubt, some animal handler was nearby but they are not visible in the photos (so they were at least several feet away). And I'm pretty sure this is something any tourist can do at these farms. My nephew comments, no way you could get away doing this in the U.S.

Does a "lucky" spectator still get a kiss from Shamu?

I think I know the tiger you are talking about and that is a huge cat.

There is a guy in Reno who has a big cat rescue and he goes to Carson City and Virginia City etc with this black leopard and you can get your picture taken with it. We dang near stepped on it in Virginia City when my wife and I turned a corner and she got her picture with him and the money goes to the rescue. Granted he is a very old leopard, you can see the spots when close up under the black hair. At the MGM in Vegas they use to, don't know if they still do, let you get a photo with a male lion and they would on special occasions let you pet a tiger at Marine World now in Vallejo California.

I ain't going near a croc.

The crocs they use for those pics have their jaw muscles cut so they have no closing pressure which is what they rely on to do damage. Though more than one of the showmen over there who did the silly 'put my head in the croc's mouth' act, got killed when the croc shut with enough pressure. Since I stopped doing croc shows myself I've lost interest but I used to be a walking catalogue of croc show accidents.

Destiny
So does captain hook.