Cool Sleigh Ride

[jorluivil]

Whale gently lifts kayakers out the water

Unforgettable close encounter with southern right whale occurs off Argentina

July 22, 2014 by Pete Thomas

Whale gently lifts kayakers out of the water; photo is a video screen grab

Two paddlers enjoyed the thrill of lifetime recently off Argentina, when their kayak was lifted out of the water by a southern right whale.
The man and woman might also be lucky that they weren’t injured, because this does not appear to be a case where the whales actively approached the kayak.

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Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a California-based whale researcher, said after watching the footage that the paddlers appear to have stopped paddling, and their momentum carried them toward the whales as the cetaceans milled at the surface.
(One paddle can be seen out of the water and stationary in the moments before the gentle impact.)
“They basically floated onto the whale,” Schulman-Janiger said. “And that impact, although it was very gentle, could have startled the whale, and it could have had a different reaction.”
The encounter occurred at Puerto Madryn, Patagonia, and it’s worth noting that southern right whales in the region are famously boat friendly and curious toward humans. They also help support a thriving commercial whale-watching industry.
The YouTube video description, translated by Bing, contains little information besides this brief statement:
“An incredible evening, lots of sun, kayaking and whale watching. As we watched from the top of the kayak… one of the whales turned and came towards our direction and lifted the boat twice!”
An unforgettable experience, to be sure.

[Cbad Mike]

Wow! That's a pretty awesome encounter.
I'm jealous!

[wiredantz]

Scary and Epic at the same time.

[toby]

I'm a little rusty on my Argentinian, but I think I remember yadda, yadda, yadda!!!

[Lineman47]

I'd crap my self for sure.


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[blitzburgh]

They got lucky IMO. I would never purposely ride up on top of a beast like that. Too much could go wrong.

[FISH11]

I thinks it's funny how they can't even get the translation correct. It really wasn't that hard I was born in Argentina. As can be seen in the video there are other boats and kayaks in the area. At first they are paddling toward the area the whales are, but when the guy realized the whale are getting closer they stop paddling and he's telling her ( Look, look ,look look) basically he's telling her that it's hard to beleive what he's seeing but start to worry the whales might crash into them. When this is going on, they had already stopped paddling and the whale continue coming because they are playing. Two of the whales are rubbing against each other and actually change course so as to come back in the dirrection of the kayak. The one whale is now on his side or back and comes under and gently lifts them slightly out of the water. The whole time you can tell this whale is having fun and just playing with them. The whale knew the whole time the kayak was there and was not scared or bothered by the kayak. It must have been a really cool experience. The most dangereous part is that before the whale picks them up, there are several other whales very close together and that could have been a problem if they had been knocked over into the water with several whales bumping into each other while playing. It does not appear as though the people in the kayak where there to cause any problem or harass the whales, The whale could have avoided them at any time if they had chose to. I'm sure they will never forget that experience. I've had some close encounters with gray whale of La Jolla, while not paddling toward them, but just drifting had one come up 20 feet to one side while I was making noise against the kayak hull to ensure they knew I was there. At first the whale was heading so straight at me I thought the same thing in that video was going to happen to me. Being able to see a whale that close in it's enviroment while sitting in a kayak is unforgetable.