From David Warren’s perspective, on a hotel balcony on the Big Island of Hawaii, it appeared as though a paddler was surfing a whale beyond the shore of Kailua-Kona.
So Warren, who was 400 yards away, grabbed a camera to capture the bizarre-looking scene.
Of course Warren knew that this was simply an optical illusion, and sure enough, the man turned out to be paddling a SUP board, and just happened to be alongside a humpback whale that had just breached.
“At first glance it looked as if the boarder was surfing on the whale,” Warren, 65, told the Daily Mail. “I then saw a whale swim past the boarder, who did not seem fazed at all, a cool dude obviously, and he then paddled back to shore.”
The paddler was Mark Jackson, who claimed to be unaware of the whale’s presence before it broke the surface immediately behind him. He then discovered that there were two humpback whales, a mother and calf.
This is prime whale-watching season in Hawaii, where thousands of humpback whales are spending the winter during their breeding and nursing season, before returning to home waters off Alaska.
There have been many close encounters involving boaters and paddlers. Earlier this month a humpback whale swimming with her calf bumped into a 25-foot inflatable boat, and passengers managed to capture footage from above and below the surface.
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