Paddleboarder has close encounter with massive blue whale

Passengers aboard the Manute'a were treated recently to an up-close sighting of an 80-foot blue whale, which surfaced alongside the boat and revealed its massive backside and fluke. But the person with the best view was a paddleboarder who got strikingly close to the great leviathan (see video).

 

This occurred Saturday off Dana Point, Calif., and the video, shot by David Anderson of Capt. Dave's Dolphin and Whale Safari, was posted Monday evening. The paddleboarder appeared to be trying to capture underwater footage of the mammoth creature -- blue whales are the largest mammals ever to inhabit the planet -- when he jumped into the water as the whale dipped beneath the surface.

Blue whales, which can measure 100 feet and weigh as much as 150 tons, have been abundant off Southern California and it may be tempting for people to join the graceful cetaceans in close quarters. But it's not safe and National Marine Fisheries Service guidelines state that swimmers and divers -- and presumably paddleboarders -- should not intentionally approach within 50 yards of whales.

Any act that alters the behavior of whales is considered harassment and punishable by fines up to $10,000.

Anderson said the blue whale on Saturday had been feeding on shrimp-like krill and did not alter its behavior in the presence of the paddleboarder.

"Blue whales are very aware of what's going on around them," Anderson said. "But still, people need to really respect the whale and should not do anything that could be considered harassment. I certainly don't want to encourage that kind of behavior."

The blue whale season has turned phenomenal off Orange County. Anderson said that on Monday alone passengers saw 19 blue whales, three fin whales, one humpback whale and hundreds of dolphins. "In the last five days we have had 110 blue whale sightings. This has never happened here," the veteran skipper added.

Comments

[Laurie D]

R D Stevens, I first saw this article on Yahoo and I looked at the video 4 or 5 times because I see that second hump there in the water for a second too. There's another article on Yahoo (one about a great white sighting) that says the boat in the article had seen a blue and a juvenile. It's possibly the same mother and child. The videos were about a week apart and in relatively the same area. Since feeding is good, I can't see why they wouldn't hang around.

[R D Stevens]

Re: your Blue Whale and Paddleboarder story....has anyone suggested that there was another juvenile whale beside the adult. It sure appeared so to me (observing another dorsal fin in the video). If so, that paddleboader was lucky not to have become a victim to an attack by a protective mother whale.