Whale watching is usually a peaceful activity, but one pair of tandem kayakers got a little too close for comfort.
During a whale watching tour out of Moss Landing, California with Sanctuary Cruises, a humpback whale nearly crushed two kayakers. Just outside the harbor at around 8 am, a nearly full-sized humpback whale soared out of the water right next to the kayakers and nearly landed right on top of them. Some have speculated that if it had hit them straight on it could have killed both kayakers. Instead they were just dumped into the water
“We stopped to see a large aggregation of humpbacks feeding and carrying on with random acts of hijinks,” reports the whale watching company on a video they posted to Youtube over the weekend. “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 US Coast Guard requires staying at least 100 feet away from any whales, however, it’s often difficult to know exactly where whales will breach. They typically stay underwater for several minutes before surfacing again so they’re exact location can be unpredictable.
The video was shot by Sanctuary Cruises passenger Larry Plants.
