Surfers get a huge surprise when they look down to see a giant whale passing beneath them
Even watching surfers in person can feel like a freeing experience. It must be so amazing to swim out into the ocean to catch a wave and ride it to shore.
There have been plenty of surfing accidents over the years and some have involved sea creatures – that’s just the risk you accept when you head out into any body of water.
But sharing the ocean is also part of the magic of watersports and underwater activities.
Most creatures that live in the ocean don’t want much to do with humans – a couple might be curious, but unless we’re either holding a snack or are a snack, we’re just yet another thing passing by.
Of course, we love seeing what’s underwater – it’s like a whole other world on our own planet! And while we might be terrified of things like sharks, very few mean us any harm. The same goes for whales.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t intimidating. We’re in their territory and we certainly aren’t fast enough to get out of their way most of the time.
Now some surfers from southern California know how that feels – they encountered a massive whale (is there any other kind when you’re a puny human?) at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point.
It happened in 2019 – and video of the event was uploaded by Peyton Laandas, who caught the footage on his DJI Mavic 2 drone.
From the sky, viewers can see the creature headed straight for the group of surfers.
But since they’re looking out to sea for their next wave, they’re all facing in the other direction!
It gets awfully close before the first person notices there’s something large headed their way – and that person happened to be 11-year-old Liam Lawless from San Diego. His dad was in the water too, but wasn’t looking down.
“All I know is it was big, and it was coming right for me,” Lawless told the Santa Cruz Sentinel of the November 11th encounter.
If you were in the water with it, there would be almost no way to tell it was a whale and not, say, a giant man-eating shark. It does flip it’s tail a bit so you can see a disturbance in the water and not just its enormous body underneath. But it seems only a few people saw it at the time.
Liam wasn’t taking any chances by the time he caught sight of the beast.
You can see him paddle away in the video, but he’s the only one.
According to the Sentinel, it turned out to be an 18-foot grey whale – almost certainly a juvenile since they grow to be up to 50 feet long.
There was likely nothing to be afraid of except maybe getting knocked off one’s surfboard, but we don’t blame the pre-teen for wanting to get the heck out of there!
“I saw the tail and I was like ‘shark,’” he said. “That’s when I got on my board and started paddling as fast as I could.”
It does make a tiny breach of the water once it gets close, which almost looks like a warning before passing underneath the surfers.
Now most of them are looking!
The strangest thing was that Liam called out to his dad (something you can’t hear on the video). Others heard him, and yet everyone was eerily still – no one else moves a muscle.
“If it’s a whale, you’re going to scream. Even if it’s a dolphin, or seal … no one said a word, which was the weirdest thing,” Michael Lawless said.
In fact, Lawless wasn’t sure his son saw anything until they got home from their trip a few days later and his wife called out to him from the other room and showed him the viral video!
The footage is amazing. The whale needs to avoid the barrier to make it out to sea, which means going right under the surfers.
Seeing it head straight for them in a stressful moment for viewers (which is why you have to see it in motion down below to get a real feel for it).
A few other surfers present commented on the drone operator, Payton Landaas’, footage. Many had no idea what had happened until the video surfaced.
“Thank you for capturing this on video! I was one of the surfers out in the lineup when the whale blew its spout — wasn’t sure if it was a whale or not till now! Absolutely surreal,” said one lucky man.
And it is surreal – make sure you scroll down below to see the video for yourself.
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