The weather map predicted a strong southerly buster, so I grabbed my phone and messaged the group chat with my friends.
Looking good for tomorrow, so heading to Mona Vale mid-morning, I wrote.
My friends Dan and Tommy jumped at the chance to join me.
I’d lived on Sydney’s northern beaches all my life and had been doing water sports since I was six.
Having sold my landscaping business, I was now semi-retired with a side hustle selling equipment for foil sports.
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Foils is a type of windsurfing.
You get e-foils that are electric and can go on lakes, or wing or wave foils where you use a board and a wing you hold on to, propelling you along the water.
The following morning, my wife, Kristen, got ready for work as a schoolteacher.
“Are you heading out today?” she asked as
I kissed her goodbye.
“Yes, perfect conditions,” I replied.
It was October 25, 2023, a beautiful sunny morning, as I packed my van and drove to meet my friends at Mona Vale car park.
In the distance, I could see humpback whales about 2km out to sea. It was such a common occurrence I didn’t even mention it to the others.
“Let’s get out there,” Dan said excitedly.
We got our gear ready and ran into the ocean.
Whizzing along, I had a massive grin on my face.
I had a new wing, and I was happily filming the action on my waterproof GoPro camera.
I’d gone about 300m from the shore when I saw an enormous object come out of the water.
To my shock, it was a massive whale breaching!
The whale shot up vertically right next to me, bursting clear of the water.
It went up about 9m high, then rolled in the air.
Next thing, its blowhole hit me in the chest, winding me as it came back down, landing right on top of me.
The whale then nose-dived back into the ocean with me attached to it.
Shop your own GoPro here!
It had gotten tangled in my leash, with my wing on one side, the rope underneath, and me on the other side of it.
As we plunged deeper into the ocean’s depths, I felt the enormous weight of the whale on top of me.
I panicked, unable to breathe or untangle myself. This is going to end badly, I thought.
It lasted for 14 long seconds, with my lungs about to burst, when the leash snapped, freeing me.
The whale kept going down while I swam up towards the light as fast as I could. I broke the water’s surface, gasping for air.
I swam over to my board and suddenly remembered the GoPro.
“A whale has hit me,” I told the camera, paddling back to shore.
On the way, I shouted out to Tommy and Dan.
“A whale hit me,” I said, but neither believed me.
Back on the beach, a couple who’d seen me go under had called triple 0.
“I feel fine,” I told them.
Apart from a slightly sore shoulder, I was miraculously unharmed.
But when I got home, I sat on the lounge shaking from shock.
Then, my phone began to ping.
What happened out there? asked
a friend.
It turned out a stranger named Paul had been having a coffee on the headlands and filmed the whole thing.
He’d put the video up on Facebook to find out who I was and make sure I was okay, and my friends recognised me.
They gave Paul my number, and he called me not long afterwards.
“I hope you don’t mind, but some TV stations have seen my footage and want to interview you,” he said.
“Sure,” I replied.
Later that afternoon, Kristen met me at the headlands, where TV crews had gathered.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she gasped.
The news producers couldn’t believe their eyes when I showed them my GoPro footage.
You could see the whale breaching out of the water, landing on me, and then the rush of water as I was pulled under.
That night, my incredible footage was beamed across Australia and the world.
For the next two weeks, I was inundated with requests for interviews.
“Sorry we didn’t believe you, mate,” Tommy said sheepishly.
The whale was probably a calf because it didn’t have a lot of barnacles on it. Barnacles would’ve shredded me.
Still, even as a calf, it was a good 7–9m long, weighing around 20–30 tonnes, so I was lucky to be alive.
When the media attention died down, I returned to the water, but the first time I paddled out, I had a panic attack.
Every shadow I saw, I thought was a whale.
I’m better now, but still a bit nervous in the water. If my leash hadn’t snapped, I would’ve drowned.
I don’t blame the whale. It’s a privilege to do what I love in their home, and I respect them enormously.
It was a pure fluke that a whale decided to breach when I was surfing by.
It’s certainly a moment I’ll never forget!
