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Journalism of Courage
Picture this: you’re gliding across a stunning blue ocean, the sun warming your skin, a light breeze brushing your face—the kind of day every kayaker dreams of. But for Adrian Simancas and his father, Dell, what started as a peaceful paddle turned into a scene straight out of a nightmare.
“I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I realised I was inside the whale’s mouth,” Adrián told the BBC.
According to the Associated Press (AP), last Saturday, while kayaking in Bahía El Aguila, near the San Isidro Lighthouse in Chile’s Strait of Magellan, the father and son experienced an unbelievable encounter. Out of nowhere, a massive humpback whale breached the surface, and within seconds, Adrián and his bright yellow kayak disappeared into its mouth.
For those few terrifying seconds, Adrian believed it was over. “I thought I was dead. I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me,” he later told AP. But just as quickly as he’d been taken, the whale let him go.
The entire ordeal unfolded right in front of Dell, who was only a few metres away. Heart racing but trying to stay calm, he continued filming while calling out to his son, “Stay calm, stay calm.”
When Adrian resurfaced, reality hit him hard. His first thoughts weren’t just about himself but about his father. “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,” he said.
That brief brush with the whale could have easily turned tragic, but both father and son made it back to shore safely. And though Adrian is still shaken, their story has since gone viral, reminding everyone just how unpredictable and powerful nature can be.
Watch the chilling video:
Reacting to the viral video, one user wrote, “I have so many words he actually been inside of a fish‘s mouth. I wonder how he felt for that split second.”
Another user said, “lol what a life story to tell people, ‘I was once swallowed by a whale’.”
A third user commented, “That was the calmest reaction to watching your boy get eaten by a giant animal that travels in pods.”
Many people shared their fear of the ocean, citing incidents like this as a reminder of why the open water makes them so uneasy. A user wrote, “Thats why I don’t mess with the ocean.”
