Some people can only dream of swimming in the open ocean alongside wild whales. For two extremely lucky boaters who were out on the water, that dream became a reality. They now have one heck of a whale tale to tell after their extremely rare and awesome encounter with two of the massive mammals.
Brad Nicholls and his girlfriend Emmy-Rose Curtis had left dry land and gone out in search of sea turtles off the Gold Coast of Australia when they happened across a mother humpback whale and her baby calf. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, the adventurous couple seized the moment and quickly jumped into the water to swim around with the huge mammals.
The whales didn’t seem to mind the human company and even hung around for about an hour or so. That’s much longer than what they typically stay for, which is usually just a couple of minutes. Thankfully Nicholls and Curtis brought along plenty of film equipment since they also happened to be testing out some new camera gear suited specifically for underwater use.
Curtis told the local news station, ABC 7, “we were just playing around underwater with the GoPros and all of a sudden there was something much larger than a turtle there. In ten years I have never seen this type of behavior for whales with a boat, let alone with us in the water.” Both he and Curtis work for whale watching companies and so they’re really familiar with whale behavior and comfortable being in the water with them.
The fact that they see the mammals day after day and never get a chance to be able to swim with them also makes their story all the more sweeter! They managed to snap a few selfies with the massive mammals as well as capture some video footage that you can check out below.
For the most part, the whales stayed near the surface while the pair swam happily around. One of the cooler things that happened during their encounter was when they managed to communicate with the peaceful giants by slapping on the surface of the water and the whales slapped back with their fins.
What began as a routine boat ride for the couple turned into the swim of a lifetime- You have to see the footage to truly appreciate how magical it all was, enjoy!
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