By Tim Binnall
An astonishing video filmed off the coast of Chile shows a kayaker being briefly swallowed by a humpback whale before being spat out by the mighty beast. The jaw-dropping incident reportedly occurred last Saturday as Adrián Simancas and his father, Dell, were exploring the Strait of Magellan. To the pair's profound surprise, their excursion took a terrifying turn when a humpback whale suddenly burst from the water and engulfed the young man. Looking back on the experience, Adrián mused "I thought I was dead. I thought it had eaten me."
Equally concerned was his father, who later recalled "I couldn't see him, I couldn't see the boat. I was worried." Fortunately, their consternation quickly came to an end when the whale released the young man back into the water, where he was able to swim over to his dad's kayak. The rattled duo subsequently returned to shore without any additional encounters with the creature that Adrián believes had simply approached his boat out of curiosity rather than genuine aggression. Looking back on his brief journey into the proverbial belly of the beast, the young man amusingly told a Spanish newspaper "when I was inside it, I remembered Pinocchio, who was also swallowed" by a monstrous denizen of the deep.