A pair of paddle boarders in San Francisco Bay got super close to a pod of gray whales, and this isn't just a fish tale. The entire encounter was caught on video, with the whales getting close enough to splash the duo and even bump one of them.
"My bud and I paddle boarded from Fort Point, San Francisco to Ocean Beach," YouTube user Mike Lane wrote. "We had the pleasure to have some beautiful video of Grey whales playing in Kelly's cove. Watch til the end where there is a whale encounter."
For the impatient, an edited version of the video that aired on CBS San Francisco is above. The full video is below, with the whale encounter starting at about the 2:35 mark.
Lane and his bud, Jim Hernandez, say the pod had two large whales and two calves.
"They were kind of playing with our path that we were taking into the beach, then they got in between us and the beach," Lane told NBC Bay Area. "In one of the shots you can see (a whale) five feet away from me and it comes out of nowhere. You can see the dorsal fin -- it splashes me down. I stood up and I looked at Jim and that's when it hit the underside of the board.”
Lane added that he wasn't scared, but "it was frightening to have a whale hit the board and feel that impact."
National Geographic says adult gray whales weigh between 30 and 40 tons and grow to between 40 and 50 feet long. As a result, not everyone seems to think this encounter was the best idea.
"Mike you do not realize just how dangerous this is. Those whales could have seriously hurt you especially since they really had no idea where you were," posted Diane Bonbright in the comments section of the YouTube video. "Need to be careful when you are out that far in the waters."
Fortunately, no one was injured.