Liberal Free Chat Zone

[ksquared]

Real-life Jonah gets trapped in whale’s jaws
By Amanda Woods
March 8, 2019 | 12:40pm
(Video at the link. Pretty interesting.)

A South African man was about to become a real-life Jonah — but this whale decided to spit him out.

Dive tour operator Rainer Schimpf, 51, went with his team last month to film a sardine run — a natural event where gannets, penguins, seals, dolphins, whales and sharks work together to gather fish into bait balls, Barcroft TV reported.

“I was trying to get a shot of a shark going through the bait ball, and then the next moment it got dark and I felt some pressure,” Schimpf said. “[That’s] when I instantly knew, a whale had grabbed me.”

“I could feel the pressure on my hip — there is no time for fear in a situation like that — you have to use your instinct,” he said.

Meanwhile, his colleagues kept the cameras rolling, capturing Schimpf’s entire torso trapped in the marine mammal’s jaws.

“As Rainer moved towards the bait ball, suddenly the water churned widely up, and I knew for sure that something was about to happen, so I held the focus of my camera on him firmly,” photographer Heinz Toperczer told the outlet.

“Suddenly, dolphins shot out of the water, a white spray came out and then a whale appeared and grabbed him!”

Luckily, the Bryde’s whale — a baleen-feeder that eats primarily plankton, and can reach lengths of up to 55 feet and weigh up to 30 tons — realized its mistake and let go of Schimpf, both escaping unharmed.

“Whales are no man-eaters,” he said. “So this was really an accident. They are gentle giants.”

Once he was set free, he immediately asked his photographer if he “got it.”

“I knew this was a very special moment,” Schimpf told the outlet.

But he hopes it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“I don’t think I had a ‘whale’ of a time, but I have the inside knowledge of what a whale is like,” Schmipf said. “It was an interesting experience, but certainly nothing I want to do again.”

https://nypost.com/2019/03/08/real-life-jonah-gets-trapped-in-whales-jaws/