Chile Kayaker taken into the mouth of a whale and spat out again
A humpback whale has taken a 24-year-old kayaker and his boat into its mouth in southern Chile and spat him out alive a few seconds later. Adrián Simancas' father filmed the incident in the Strait of Magellan near Punta Arenas with his cell phone camera, according to US media reports.
14.02.2025, 11:26
SDA
When the 24-year-old then saves himself in his father Dell's boat, he can be heard shouting in the video: "I thought he had swallowed me." He didn't realize what had happened at first, Simancas told CNN en Español about the moments inside the whale. "When I turned around, I felt something slimy on my face. I saw colors like dark blue, white, something approaching from behind, closing... and pulled me down," he said.
"At that moment, I thought there was nothing I could do, that I was going to die. I didn't know what it was," he continued. It was only when he was back on the surface of the water that he slowly understood what had happened.
The two of them also want to go further out to sea
His father reported that he heard a strong wave crashing behind him. "And when I turned around, I didn't see Adrián or his pack raft, so I got worried, and about three seconds later I saw that he had shot to the surface and the pack raft was after him," Dell told the broadcaster.
Despite the scary incident, father and son plan to continue kayaking together in the future, they assured the station.
It is extremely rare for a person to find themselves in the mouth of a whale, and probably only accidentally. However, individual cases have already been reported, for example in 2021, when a lobster diver said he had been in the mouth of a humpback whale.
