

An alternative the front crawl is the doggy paddle. Kinda the same, but saves you from taking your hands out of the water. Even as someone who’s swam my whole life and can swim pretty much any stroke I still doggy paddle a lot especially in salty water
I have a theory that animals perceive fear and anger as the same emotion. Since with most animals whenever they get scared they lash out and attack things.
So they see you scared and react so you dont attack them. Its just unfortunate for them since we can remember and retaliate.