Alaska paddleboarder escapes a close encounter with a humpback whale

An Alaska man on a paddleboard escaped an in depth encounter with a humpback whale, not even getting moist throughout a tense few seconds caught on digicam by family and friends as the enormous creature surfaced proper in entrance of him then glided underneath his board.

“It’s just so massive. You’re puny against this whale,” Kevin Williams of Anchorage mentioned Thursday, per week after his journey with an grownup humpback whale in Prince William Sound. Adult females can weigh as much as 31,700 kilograms and common about 15 metres in size, based on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Males are a little bit smaller.

Williams mentioned anybody who claims they would not be afraid in that scenario is loopy.

Kevin Williams survived the close encounter with a humpback whale, not even getting wet during a tense few seconds caught on camera — Kevin Williams survived the shut encounter with a humpback whale, not even getting moist throughout a tense few seconds caught on digicam (AP)

“If you have a whale that doesn’t know you were there and is that close, that’s not a good situation,” he mentioned. One flick of the animal’s fin “or anything it does could be the end of my life.”

Williams, his son Brian and a pair different pals have been paddleboarding or kayaking within the sound simply off Whittier, positioned about 100 km southeast of Anchorage.

They had seen the whale within the fjord, which is about 3 km huge. Williams mentioned he was slower than his pals, who have been about 60 metres forward of him.

The whale started to method his pals, however they have been near the shoreline so he figured the whale would run out of room and reverse course. He thought he was within the most secure spot since he was trailing the group.

The whale went underwater for about 45 seconds, longer than he had seen it dive earlier than.

“And it surfaced right in front of me, coming towards me,” Williams mentioned. “Whoa! I love to see whales up close, but I’m on a paddleboard.”

As the whale slipped beneath the water once more and turned on its aspect, he may see the white of its stomach slowly gliding beneath, a couple of metre underneath the floor.

A whale approaches Kevin Williams while he was paddleboarding in Prince William Sound near Whittier, Alaska. — A whale approaches Kevin Williams whereas he was paddleboarding in Prince William Sound close to Whittier, Alaska. (AP)

The whale’s pectoral fin was sticking just a few toes out of the water, and Williams feared the creature may flip over because it swam beneath him, or he may topple off the board and land on its abdomen.

“If I fell down, you know, my feet could have easily been on that whale — tickling that whale or whatever,” he mentioned.

To regular himself in case the fin hit, he braced his knees collectively, kneeled, then lowered himself on all fours.

As the whale handed underneath him “there was hardly any turbulence, and I didn’t get wet,” he mentioned, including that it’s uncommon for folks to get harm by whales.

Still, the expertise gained’t preserve Williams off the water. He plans one other paddleboarding journey in a while Thursday.

“I’ll never stop, and this is once in a lifetime,” he mentioned.