‘I thought it was a Great White’: Incredible moment diver comes face-to-face with a playful humpback whale in stunning underwater footage
- For a terrifying instant, a NSW Central Coast freediver thought he was shark bait
- Swimming 950m offshore, and far from his friends, diver feared the worst
- Shock turned to joy as a curious young whale swam up to check him out
- Freediver tried to back away to give the humpback space – but it followed him
- Gentle giant captured on GoPro footage as it swims right up to Sydney man
A surprised freediver got the shock of his life when he was followed by a curious young humpback whale off the New South Wales Central Coast on Saturday.
Damien Smith, 31, was spearfishing with three friends at Norah Head, 113km north of Sydney when he saw a large shape in the water about 10m to 15m away, and immediately thought: shark.
‘It scared the hell out of me as at first I thought it was a great white,’ he said.
Damien Smith was surprised by a humpback whale as he was freediving off Norah Head, NSW, on Saturday. He backed away but the curious young cetacean followed him. Mr Smith filmed the encounter on his GoPro (still picture captured from video at top)
‘I was in the water for about 40 minutes when I looked up,’ he told Daily Mail Australia on Monday.
‘I could see it fairly clearly – but that instant when you see it … a massive shape in the distance with a white belly, just that first thought – it’s always on your mind.’
The Sydney man was about 950m offshore and his friends were nowhere near him, but his fears turned quickly to wonder and joy as he realised it wasn’t a shark but a juvenile humpback whale, about 8m long, swimming towards him.
Damien Smith, 31, had gone out on his 19-foot boat with three friends and had been in the water for about 40 minutes when the amazing encounter happened on Saturday
‘It followed me and checked me out as I was sitting there on the surface,’ he said.
‘It was not afraid, and it was super curious. It swam over to me and right underneath me – it was maybe 3m away.
‘I started swimming back to give it some space and it turned and followed me and checked me out some more. It came right up to me.’
‘I was trying to give it space but it was trying to see me more.’
Mr Smith said he felt lucky to have seen the whale as none of his friends did, and he filmed the encounter with a GoPro camera.
‘I’ve never seen one before and I’ll probably never see one again – I hope I do, though.’
Professor Andy Davis, director of the Marine Science Program at the University of Wollongong said the 8m humpback Mr Smith saw would have been a juvenile.
‘Kids are curious,’ he said.
‘This is a curious young whale that’s thought: what’s that in the water?’
‘Almost certainly that’s the case.’
‘What a fantastic experience – he’ll have that memory for the rest of his life,’
Professor Davis said the whales, which eat krill and bait fish, were gentle giants that posed no threat to people in the water even if they come very close.
‘We’ve seen the videos of whales interacting with whale boats … there’s nothing to fear.
The only issue is if you get between a mother and a newborn
‘There are snorkelling tours in places like Tonga and I’ve never heard any reports of anything going wrong.’
Daily Mail Australia has captured video of tourists swimming with whales in Tonga last August (video at bottom), where again the whales, seemingly friendly and curious, rise to inspect the swimmers and roll over to show them their belly.
Australia has national guidelines for whale watching since 2005 that say swimmers are not to enter the water within 100m of a whale and should not approach closer than 30m to the animal.
But in cases such as what happened to Mr Smith, when the whale takes swimmers by surprise and approaches them, the swimmers are not in breach of the guidelines.