Humpback whale swallows and then spits out kayaker off Chile coast

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A huge humpback whale briefly scooped a kayaker in its mouth in the seas off the coast of southern Chile before spitting him out unscathed in a dramatic incident caught on camera.

The kayaker, Adrian Simancas, was out with his father last weekend in the seas off the town of Punta Arenas, when the whale surfaced and scooped him up in his mouth.

"I felt like I was being lifted, but it was clearly too strong to be a wave," said Simancas.

"When I turned, I felt something blue and white passing close to my face, like on one side and above. I didn't understand what was happening. Then everything... I went under and thought I had been swallowed."

Luckily, the whale quickly spat out Simancas unharmed. His father, in another kayak, caught the whole thing on camera.

"I turned on the camera and heard a wave crash behind me, loudly. When I turned, I didn't see anything," said his father, Dell Simancas.

"So that was the only moment of real fear because I didn't see Adrian for about three seconds. Then he suddenly shot out without the packraft, and a second later, the packraft emerged, and then I saw the fin of something."

Adrian Simancas was sure he was going to die during the ordeal.

"I thought I was done for, that I was dead. It was like three strange seconds down there," he said.

(Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Adam Jourdan; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

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