Like much of the California coastline right now, the Monterey area is heavily populated with both blue and humpback whales. Two kayakers got an up-close and personal view to one of these magnificent animals when one of the whales surfaced and breached – on top of them.
From Sanctuary cruises: “On our 8:00 am Sanctuary Cruises whale tour, just outside the harbor in Moss Landing, two kayakers on a tandam kayak were almost crushed to death by a massive, near full-size humpback whale. We stopped to see a large aggregation of humpbacks feeding and carrying on with random acts of hijinks. There were also a lot of kayakers right in the middle of it all. Humpbacks were coming up next to and in the middle of many kayakers. It was amusing. It’s all fun and games until someone gets jumped on. The next thing we knew, this thing launched right on top of these two kayakers. That was heavy. The video was shot by Sanctuary Cruises passenger Larry Plants.”
According to Yahoo News, one of the kayakers, a wildlife film director who was only identified as Tom, recounted the experience:
“We were taken under the water by the whale, perhaps in the down-draft,” he said. “I think it brushed against me while I was out of the kayak … Neither of us know how we weren’t ended there and then.”
He called the encounter “the most extraordinary thing to happen to me.”
The boat was swamped and couple thrown into the water by the impact, but they were unhurt and made it safely to shore.