Paddler ‘Swallowed’ and Spat Out by Humpback Whale

A young Venezuelan packrafter briefly became a modern-day Jonah and Pinocchio when he found himself inside the mouth of a humpback whale. The whale released Adrian Simancas unharmed, and his father, Dall Simancas, caught the entire bizarre incident on video.

Adrian Simancas, 23, and his father Dall, 49, were packrafting through the Strait of Magellan between Tierra del Fuego and mainland South America. Dall, who’d been filming the waves, had his camera trained on his son when two massive jaws emerged from the water and closed around the little yellow inflatable and its lone passenger.

For a moment, the choppy waters are empty, with man, beast, and boat submerged beneath the waves. Then, Adrian reemerges, followed by the packraft, which he quickly swims for. A massive grey, finned back crests briefly beside him and then is gone.

Amazed at his lucky escape, Adrian later described his experience. The inside of the whale’s mouth, he said, was slimy against his face, and all he saw was dark blue and white. He thought he was going to die — and then he was on the surface again, pulled up by his life vest.

The ocean surface with whale mouth sticking out, then gone.

The whale emerges and, just as quickly, submerges. Photo: Dall Simancas

Not technically swallowed

Despite thousands of years of mythology, it is not actually possible for a person to find themselves in the stomach of a whale.

“Ultimately, the whale spit out the kayak because it was physically impossible to swallow,” said Brazilian conservationist Roched Jacobson Seba.

Despite their massive size, whales have very narrow throats, about the width of a human fist. They can stretch to be a bit larger, up to about 38cm, but a boat and its passenger are quite beyond their capabilities.

Only one whale can theoretically swallow a human. The sperm whale has sharp teeth and feeds on large squids and fish. This means it has a large enough esophagus to gulp down a human. Encounters with them are much rarer, though, and sperm whales have not swallowed any humans except in fiction. The leviathan in Moby Dick that nipped off Captain Ahab’s leg was a sperm whale.

Being engulfed in the massive mouth of a humpback, however, is not off the table, as Simancas learned. He isn’t the first person to spend time in the slimy maw of a whale. In 2021, a humpback ‘swallowed’ lobster diver Michael Packard off Cape Cod. Like Simancas, he was soon spat back out. Californian kayakers in 2020 and a tour operator off South Africa’s Port Elizabeth in 2019 reported similar incidents. This even once happened to a confused harbor seal.

Black and white illustration of a man in the mouth of a giant fish.

Jonah being spat out of the whale, 1873 illustration. From a copy held by the University of Illinois

 

Probably unintentional

Researchers have weighed in on these engulfing incidents. They insist that the whales did not intend to have people in their mouths any more than the people intended to be there.

As baleen whales, humpbacks take in huge gulps of seawater. Then they use the bristles in their mouths to filter for plankton, shrimp, and small fish. This is what they are after, and the rest, like paddlers, they soundly reject. When you are as big as a whale and maybe not paying attention, you can accidentally gulp down Adrian Simancas and his packraft along with your seawater and shrimps.

Humpback whale emerging from water with open mouth

While only after little fish, this humpback whale’s massive gaping maw is big enough to fit a person. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

 

Accidents like these are why whale researchers warn people not to use silent craft, like kayaks and paddleboards, in waters where whales are active. Whale-watching boats keep their engines on at all times to alert the whales to their presence.

Adrian Simancas and his father don’t hold a grudge against the whale. At first, terrified, Adrian thought an orca was eating him. However, after he got free, he realized that the whale was probably “just curious.” Father and son said they plan to get back in the water soon, despite the engulfing.

Lou Bodenhemier

Lou Bodenhemier holds an MA in History from the University of Limerick and a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. He’s interested in maritime and disaster history as well as criminal history, and his dissertation focused on the werewolf trials of early modern Europe. At the present moment he can most likely be found perusing records of shipboard crime and punishment during the Age of Sail, or failing that, writing historical fiction horror stories. He lives in Dublin and hates the sun.