An ultramarathon swimmer was joined by a seal during her record-breaking swim across the English Channel.

Eva Buzo, 37, was training for an endurance swim from Italy to Albania when a friendly seal joined her on her grueling journey.

Eva set off from Shakespeare Beach, Dover, at 11:15pm on June 5, making her the first woman to ever swim the channel this early in the year.

Eva was roughly four hours her journey, fighting against the biting 13-degree water, when a seal swam directly underneath her and popped its head up in front of her.

Eva nicknamed the seal Trudy after Trudy Ederle who, in 1926, was the first woman to swim the English Channel.

Eva, a barrister and executive director at Victim Advocates International, said: "When Trudy Ederle swam from New York to New Jersey for the first time, a seal joined her for that as well.

"I'm a pretty cynical person and don't often anthropomorphise animals, but it was a really special moment."

Eva, who is originally from Sydney, Australia, has been swimming since childhood and reached a high level at a young age, but stopped competitive swimming when she was a teenager.

She picked it up again about a four years ago in Australia and has been beating her own records ever since.

The last two years, she has been living between Sydney and London for the past two years so she can swim all year round.

Eva is still acclimatizing to chilly English waters and almost abandoned the Channel crossing.

She said: "I almost pulled out but I kept telling myself that I just needed to make it to dawn.

"The sun was due to come up at around four in the morning and I knew after that the rest of the swim would be easier.

"But I was still really struggling, and then, in the final hour before dawn broke, the seal appeared.

"It looked quite small, so could have been a baby, and she was so friendly.

"It was swimming very closely to me and would make eye contact with me as well as come up behind me and nuzzle my toes."

The seal swam alongside Eva - doing roly-polies and touching her toes - for nearly an hour before it eventually swam off.

Eva continued her journey and reached Cap Gris-Nez in France on June 6 at 10:06am - completing an 10-hour-and-49 minute swim.

Eva is now eight weeks away from her 90km endurance swim from Italy to Albania across the Adriatic Sea.

It's the second time she attempts the swim after having to pull out 10km from the end after 28 hours of swimming.

Eva said: "I'm excited to give this swim another go.

"I think ultramarathon endurance swimming goes really under the radar as a sport where women come on top.

"The top seven athletes in the field are women.

"So it's not a sport where the women are just equal to men, we're far outperforming them."