Global Courant
A whale with a sense of humor gave a professional fisherman a queensland jump scare, Australia, and the video of the incident is both terrifying and hilarious.
It happened to Sammy Hitzke at about 5:30 p.m. on June 27, when he was out alone “having a relaxing troll” near Moreton Island.
The video, viewed more than 80,000 times on social media, shows Hitzke busy rigging bait when he heard a splash and looked up to see something big and black emerging from the water just a few feet away.
It disappeared back into the water just as quickly – right at him.
The boat then begins to bounce in the creature’s wake, and Hitzke is seen grabbing the back of a chair, looking in all directions to see where he will emerge next.
Hitzke only utters two words in the 56-second video, the first of which is “sacred.”
“So close I could almost smell his breath! Luckily it wasn’t grumpy and he ducked under the boat to continue on his way,” he wrote on Facebook. “For those wondering, yes, the spare underwear was put on shortly after!”
Hitzke noticed in an Instagram post that the whale was “probably still laughing about it with his whale mates.”
The encounter certainly scared him, and Hitzke told McClatchy News that he was afraid the whale’s tail would slam into the boat — or that it would swim through its troll lines. Both could have been dangerous.
He’s not sure of the whale species, but… waters off the coast of Queensland are home to humpback whales, minke whales, killer whales (killer whales) and southern right whales, experts say.
As for size, all Hitzke can say is “it was pretty damn big.”
The video was shared on Facebook on June 29 and Instagram, where it has received more than 2,300 replies and comments. Most agreed it was a terrifying encounter.
“I bet it made you feel small,” Cynthia Kite Snook wrote.
“I like whales, but not when they swim right under the boat,” Adam Hodges Posted.
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