Abdelrahman
Adrián Simancas had been kayaking for two hours in the serene yet frigid waters of the Strait of Magellan, located off the coast of Chilean Patagonia, when a colossal creature suddenly surfaced, pulling him underwater.
“I noticed a mix of dark blue and white colors just before I felt a slimy surface brush against my face,” the 24-year-old recounted in an interview with the Guardian. “I squeezed my eyes shut in anticipation of what was coming, but it felt soft, almost like being hit by a wave.”
In a remarkable and rare incident, Simancas found himself completely engulfed by a humpback whale. He instinctively closed his eyes and held his breath.
“When the whale’s mouth closed around me and pulled me down, it felt like I was caught in a whirlpool, lying down and spinning,” he described. For a brief moment, his life hung in the balance of the 40-tonne marine giant. “If it had decided to swallow me, there would have been nothing I could do.”
The hair-raising experience lasted merely seconds. Moments later, Simancas found himself being lifted to the surface by his life jacket. While he emerged unscathed, he was in shock and called out to his father, who was paddling alongside him and managed to capture the event on a 360-degree camera attached to his raft.
This astonishing footage quickly went viral, leading to a flurry of playful comparisons of Simancas to characters like Pinocchio and Jonah. However, it also led to some misconceptions about whale behavior, raising concerns among experts in the field.
“Humpback whales possess a narrow esophagus and primarily feed on small prey such as fish and krill, so they cannot ‘consume’ or ‘swallow’ a human,” explained María José Pérez Álvarez, a marine biologist at Universidad de Chile and Base Millennium Institute. She clarified that humpback whales lack teeth, using brush-like plates instead to trap and filter their food. “It wouldn’t have been able to bite him either,” she noted.
Despite Simancas being unharmed, Pérez Álvarez stressed that human-whale interactions should be avoided at all costs. “A humpback whale can grow around 18 meters long, and it could inadvertently injure a person with its sheer size,” she added.
Local kayakers have since voiced concerns about safety measures. Guillermo Meza, who runs a kayaking business, expressed that Simancas ventured too far out to sea. “I would never have paddled that far on an inflatable raft,” he stated. Meza also emphasized the importance of keeping a safe distance of over 100 meters from whales, adding that if one gets close, paddlers should remain still.
According to Chilean regulations, the minimum distance for observing whales is set at 100 meters. Simancas and his father, both nature enthusiasts, clarified that they didn’t intentionally approach the whale and hadn’t seen it until the encounter. “The sea was extremely calm, and as we neared the end of the bay, the whale lunged unexpectedly,” he recalled.
Having practiced pack rafting for the past year, Simancas uses an inflatable raft that can be folded into a backpack, allowing him to combine hiking with kayaking while exploring varied landscapes.
The duo had embarked on this journey to celebrate the father’s birthday, starting from Fin de Camino—one of the southernmost points on the continent. They intended to integrate paddling and hiking, heading toward a nearby island.
Unfortunately, one of Simancas’s paddles was damaged when the whale struck. Nevertheless, they managed to navigate back by joining their rafts, with one of them controlling the left paddle and the other managing the right.
This experience has left Simancas with a newfound respect for nature, leading him to pledge greater safety measures for future outings—primarily by staying closer to the shoreline. “I feel incredibly fortunate for this second chance to reflect on the decisions that brought me here—not just in this adventure, but in life overall,” he shared. However, he has decided to pause any rafting plans for the remainder of the current season, stating, “I’ll wait until next year.”
