In an extraordinary incident, Adrián Simancas was briefly engulfed by a humpback whale while kayaking in Chile's Strait of Magellan. The moment was captured on video by his father. Simancas expressed initial terror, fearing for his life and worrying about his father's safety after the encounter. Thankfully, he managed to swim back to his father's kayak. The area is known for its diverse marine life, including whales that feed on krill and small fish, and it demonstrates the unpredictable nature of wildlife interactions.
"At first, I thought I had died. It was like, of course, a lot of terror," Simancas said in a video interview with the Associated Press afterward in Punta Arenas.
"When I got out and started to float there I was really afraid that something would happen to my dad, too, that we wouldn't reach the shore in time and I would get hypothermia," he said.
Humpbacks are known as one of the most agile and acrobatic whales, often leaping out of the water belly up before slapping back down.
Encounters with humans recorded in recent years include a whale breaching and capsizing a boat off the coast of New Hampshire in July, sending the fisherman into the water.
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