I SURVIVED GETTING SWALLOWED BY A WHALE
Ilive with my husband, Tyrone, in San Luis Obispo, California. Every few years, the humpback whales come into the bay for a few days while they’re migrating.
In November 2020, the whales were around, so we took out our yellow double kayak. We saw about 20 whales feeding on silverfish. It was incredible. They breached and sprayed through their blowholes, and were so graceful and majestic. Each one is huge, about 15 metres long.
At the time, my friend Liz Cottriel was staying with us. The next morning, I asked Liz if she wanted to go out on the water to check them out.
“No way,” she said. She’s scared of whales and sharks, and was terrified the kayak would overturn while we were in it. I told her there was nothing to worry about. We got out on the water at about 8.30 the next morning. For the first half hour we didn’t see anything. Then I spotted two pairs of whales just past the pier, swimming towards us. It’s an amazing feeling to be so close to a creature that size.
When whales go down af ter breaching, they leave what looks like an oil slick on the water. I figured if we paddled towards that spot, we’d be safe from the whales, since they’d just left. We followed them at a distance – or what I thought was a distance. I later found out that it’s recommended to keep 100 metres away. We were about 18 metres away.
All of a sudden, a tightly packed swarm of fish, known as a bait ball, started jumping out of the water into our kayak. Their movement sounded like crackling glass around us. At that moment, I knew we were too close. I was terrified. Then I felt the kayak lift out of the water – about two metres, we later learned – and tip back into the ocean. I figured the whale
was going to drag us down somehow, and I had no idea how deep we’d be sucked underwater.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that Liz and I were in the whale’s mouth. It had engulfed my entire body except for my right arm and paddle. Liz, meanwhile, was looking up directly into the whale’s jaw – it was like a big white wall. I was still worried about being sucked underwater, so I just kept thinking, I’ve got to get up. I’ve got to fight this. I’ve got to breathe.
Whales have huge mouths but tiny throats. Anything they can’t swallow, they spit out. We were wearing life jackets and soon we both popped up out of the water about a metre apart. The entire ordeal lasted only ten seconds, but to me it felt like an eternity.
A few people were nearby, and someone shot a video of the entire incident. Three or four people paddled over, including a retired firefighter who asked us if we were OK.
“You were in the whale’s mouth!” he told us. “We thought you were dead.”
A few days later, I studied the video and saw how close I’d come to being injured or killed.
There’s no way I’m getting that close to the whales again. I want to respect their space. When we got back to shore, Liz removed her T-shirt, and five or six fish flopped out.