Humpback whale surprises kayaker in Chile with big gulp and safe spit out

Adrian Simancas was paddling off the Patagonian city of Punta Arenas on Saturday when the giant baleen surged out of the water swallowing him and his yellow kayak whole. (via AP)

A humpback whale briefly swallowed a kayaker in southern Chile, before spitting him out unharmed, an amazing escape that was all captured on video.

Adrian Simancas was paddling off the Patagonian city of Punta Arenas on Saturday when the giant baleen surged out of the water swallowing him and his yellow kayak whole.

Five seconds later a stunned Adrian bobbed to the surface, as the whale's dorsal again emerged above the surface of the frigid gray water.

"I thought I was dead," Adrian told The Associated Press. "I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me."

He described the "terror" of those few seconds and explained that his real fear set in only after resurfacing, fearing that the huge animal would hurt his father or that he would perish in the frigid waters.

"When I came up and started floating, I was scared that something might happen to my father too, that we wouldn’t reach the shore in time, or that I would get hypothermia," Adrian said.

The entire remarkable episode was caught on camera and posted on social media by his father, Dell Simancas, who can be heard shouting "Relax! Relax!" to his understandably unrelaxed son.

"Grab it, grab it" the father adds, instructing his son to keep a hold of the kayak to stay afloat.

"Relax, relax, I'm coming," the father says. "Let's go to shore."

Despite the terrifying experience, Dell remained focused, filming and reassuring his son while grappling with his own worry.

The video quickly went viral.

Whale attacks

Located about 3,000 kilometres south of Santiago, Chile's capital, the Strait of Magellan is a major tourist attraction in the Chilean Patagonia, known for adventure activities.

Its frigid waters pose a challenge for sailors, swimmers and explorers who attempt to cross it in different ways.

Although it's summer in the Southern Hemisphere, temperatures in the region remain cool, with minimums dropping to 4 degrees Celsius and highs rarely exceeding 20 degrees Celsius.)

While whale attacks on humans are extremely rare in Chilean waters, whale deaths from collisions with cargo ships have increased in recent years, and strandings have become a recurring issue in the last decade.

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Source: TRT