Kayakers nearly swallowed by whale

[Jim Snyder]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/11/03/us/whale-kayak-trnd/index.html

[Brian Nystrom]

While that's incredibly scary and the potential for injury was really high, getting swallowed was never a possibility. Here's an interesting fact from an article about humpbacks:

"Considering a humpback whale grows up to 60ft in length, weighs up to 40 tons, and can hold 5,000 gallons of water in its mouth, the opening at the back of its throat is no larger than a grapefruit. That fact may be difficult to swallow (pun intended), but humpback whales are filter feeders that gobble up millions of tiny prey like crustaceans, krill, herring, and other tasty critters. Humans are off the menu, as a humpback couldn’t swallow us even if it wanted too."

That said, I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to test it.

[Jim Snyder]

This is worse...

https://paddlingmag.com/videos/humpback-whale-lands-on-kayakers-video/?utm_source=Paddling+Magazine&utm_campaign=df7036cee5-ptw-2021-07-08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_66b554bdc5-df7036cee5-90148861&ct=t(ptw-2021-07-08)

[Brian Nystrom]

That happened six years ago and there a documentary film about one of the paddlers' efforts to try to identify the whale involved. I won't ruin the ending for you.

[PeterB]

what Brian Nystrom  said:


it's  stupid and sensationalistic to create  headlines about kayakers being "almost swallowed " by whales.
It is plausible that a kayaker (or some other large object or animal) could end up inside the mouth of a whale in the course of its feeding, which involves taking in large amounts of water into the mouth .  It is not plausable (and journalistically irresponsible)  to state or imply  that a kayaker could be in any danger of being swallowed (i.e  ingested) by a whale.  

[Jim Snyder]

10 hours ago, Brian Nystrom said:

That happened six years ago and there a documentary film about one of the paddlers' efforts to try to identify the whale involved. I won't ruin the ending for you.

Are you referring to the "swallowing"? In this one a whale apparently lands right on top of a kayak. I only posted it here to avoid starting another stupid whale thread.

[Jim Snyder]

Ok, I know it's a monkey, not a whale but it's my thread.

https://paddlingmag.com/videos/monkey-attacks-kayaker/

[Pintail]

There were two monkeys in that short video and perhaps the paddlers interrupted courtship or something similar...who knows?...but I doubt the monkey's ill manners were pure aggression.  They are curious creatures and often quite brave; but that wasn't much of an "attack", now, was it?  Had it been a baboon, however, that would have been a different matter altogether!

[Pintail]

PS: A propos the breaching incident: "Boat 246: come in, please!  Boat 246, your time is up!"