What Is It?

Need some help from the engine gurus. Recently came home from vacation to find that the battery died on my BU (Monsoon) and since it rained it was full of water. Got the charger on it and got it started and water started spewing from what looks like some kind of pump toward back left side of the engine (if you are facing the stern) connected to the transmission. We immediately shut the engine off and continued to bilge. When all the water was out we restarted and there was no more spewing and everything is normal. What is this device that was doing said spewing and is it normal?

looks like the starter, but it should be completely enclosed to prevent sparks from ignighting gas fumes.

probably the flywheel (where the starter engages the flywheel to turn the motor over, if the flywheel was underwater it woudl "spew" water everywhere. I had it happen a fwe times on my old prostar, never had any issues from it. But have heard that after the water has been that high dont; expect yrou starter to last as long as it should.

That makes sense, thanks guys.