A kayaker has told of his brush with death after being swallowed by a humpback whale off the Chilean coast. Adrian Simancas was paddling in the Strait of Magellan when the massive mammal surfaced and engulfed his yellow kayak, with the heart-stopping moment captured on camera by his father. "I thought I was dead. I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me," said the 24-year-old, who was released by the whale after several terrifying seconds.
Despite his father's attempts to calm him, Simancas feared he might still perish in the freezing waters. "When I came up and started floating, I was scared that something might happen to my father too, that we wouldn't reach the shore in time, or that I would get hypothermia.". Both father and son managed to paddle safely to shore following last Saturday's ordeal in Patagonia, some 1,600 miles from Santiago.
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