Abdelrahman
A remarkable incident occurred in southern Chile when a humpback whale momentarily engulfed a kayaker, only to release him unharmed. This extraordinary escape was captured on video.
On Saturday, Adrian Simancas was kayaking near the Patagonian city of Punta Arenas when the enormous baleen whale leapt out of the water and swallowed both him and his bright yellow kayak.
Just five seconds later, a stunned Simancas resurfaced as the whale’s dorsal fin was once again visible above the chilly gray waters.
“I thought he had swallowed me!” Simancas exclaimed.
This astonishing moment was documented on camera and quickly went viral after being shared on social media by his father, Dell Simancas, who can be heard advising his understandably panicked son to “Relax! Relax!”
“Hold onto it, hold onto it,” the father urged, encouraging his son to maintain grip on the kayak while the whale lingered nearby.
“Just relax, I’m coming,” the father reassured. “Let’s head to shore.”
The 24-year-old told Chile’s TVN channel that he saw something “blue and white” moving closely past his face. “I didn’t comprehend what was happening before I sank. I thought I had been eaten.”
His father recounted that he turned around and initially couldn’t see Adrian, which caused him a moment of true fear. “I didn’t see him for about three seconds, and then he suddenly resurfaced,” he told TVN.
Experts clarified that a humpback whale would not be able to swallow a kayaker due to its small throat. “It appears the kayak was in the whale’s feeding area, possibly filled with krill or fish,” explained marine biologist Maria Jose Perez from the University of Chile to AFP.
This behavior of the whale swimming to the surface sideways with its mouth open is typical in such scenarios. “Such occurrences are extremely uncommon and usually take place when silent boats like kayaks are present,” she noted, adding that the whale likely did not detect the small vessel.
