In a scene straight out of Jonah and the whale, a Chilean kayaker’s peaceful paddling trip turned into a heart-stopping encounter when a massive humpback whale suddenly swallowed him whole – and remarkably spat him back out alive. Adrián Simancas was exploring the scenic Strait of Magellan in Chilean Patagonia with his father Dell last Saturday when the unthinkable happened.
In an extraordinary video captured by his dad, Adrián can be seen disappearing into the whale’s enormous mouth before resurfacing several yards away moments later.
“I thought I was dead. I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me,” Adrián told the Associated Press, still shaken by the encounter.
He vividly described the surreal experience of being inside the whale’s mouth: “I felt this slimy texture on my face, saw these colors – dark blue and white – something closing in from behind…”
The experience was made even more terrifying by a conversation they’d had just minutes before.
“We had been talking about orcas shortly before, so I had that in my head,” Adrián admitted, explaining his initial fear that he’d encountered a killer whale rather than a humpback.
But surviving the whale’s mouth wasn’t the end of Adrián’s concerns. After resurfacing, his thoughts immediately turned to his father’s safety and the very real dangers of their situation.
“I was scared something might happen to my father too, that we wouldn’t reach the shore in time, or that I would get hypothermia,” he recalled.
Looking back on the incredible encounter, Adrián has taken a surprisingly philosophical view.
“It was probably out of curiosity that the whale approached me,” he mused, “or maybe to communicate or something.”
