A whale swallows a young man who was kayaking and spits him out
The incident took place in the southern area of Punta Arenas, Chile, and was captured on video by the boy's father.
BarcelonaIf you have seen or read Pinocchio, you will remember the image of old Geppetto and his animated puppet being swallowed by a giant whale. Surprisingly, that is what happened to a young Chilean boy who was kayaking with his father this Saturday in the Strait of Magellan, Chile: he was swallowed by a whale and spat out.
The events occurred on February 8, when Adrián Simancas and his father, Dell Simancas, went kayaking in the area south of Punta Arenas, in what is known as Águila Bay, on an outing that was supposed to last until Tuesday. But events forced them to change their plans. The father was recording his son on video when, suddenly, the giant mouth of a whale – a common animal in Chilean waters at this time of year – came out of the sea and swallowed the young man, who emerged moments later, as can be seen in the images. Adrian quickly paddled, quite dazed, towards his father, who gave him directions and helped him into his kayak. Dell reassured his son as the whale thrashed around in the background. As you can hear in the video, Dell was calm, filming and calming his son as he tried to escape from the giant whale.
"When I turned around, I couldn't see Adrian."
Adrian recounted the experience to CHV Noticias: "At the end of that stretch, I once felt the bow of the boat hit. At first I thought it was a wave, but it was too strong to be a wave. And when I turned around, I felt something between dark blue and white pass over my face. And I noticed that everything was dark, I thought it had eaten me and that there was nothing I could do. I noticed that my life jacket was lifting up. This lasted for about two seconds, until I got out of the water."
"Everything was going very well, suddenly the weather turned bad. The waves became very exciting, like I wanted to film them," my father recounts. "When I turned around, I couldn't see Adrian, I couldn't see the boat. After two seconds, it shot up, and then I saw a bullet."
The species that the young Chilean swallowed was a humpback whale, known for the exorbitant size of its pectoral fins – which can reach 5 m – but which is of average size: it is a whale between 14 and 15 meters.
