Some kayakers off the coast of Costa Rica got the best show ever when a whale that had been swimming nearby decided to breach. The friends had a front-row seat as the large animal launched out of the water and crashed back down. The shock on one of the kayakers’ faces says it all.
“Yesterday we invited some friends over to go kayaking as a cool Saturday plan,” wrote Valeria Quesada. “We were secretly hoping to maybe spot some whales since my boyfriend and I had been seeing them from our house the past few days—but honestly, we had no expectations. What we didn’t know was that this mama and her baby were about to put on this kind of show for us! At first, they were just swimming and coming up for air around us . . . and then this happened.”
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The breaching whale appears to be a humpback whale, thanks to its long, distinctive pectoral fins. Costa Rica is a great place to view humpback whales, because there are humpbacks swimming off the nation’s coasts nearly every month of the year.
Watch a whale breach in front of a group of kayakers in Costa Rica here:
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