Snorkelers off Australia’s Gold Coast had an adrenaline moment they won’t soon forget when a humpback whale pitched one of them into the air with a flick of its tail.
Max Persyn and Jacqueline Payne of Queensland were taking part in a swim with whales excursion when one of their guides went airborne. One of the nearby humpbacks had flicked its tail, sending the man skyward.
“We think the rope we were hanging onto touched the whale’s tail, and just like we would flick away an unfamiliar touch, so did the whale,” the couple later wrote. “There just happened to be a human above him!”
The whales had been swimming around them for 20 minutes, and by the time of the incident, they had come unusually close.
The guide was unhurt.
