'At the mercy of this whale': B.C. couple had dinghy lifted by humpback during hours-long encounter
A Vancouver couple was in awe and a bit scared during an hours-long encounter with a whale on B.C.'s Central Coast.
Evan Lee-Dodek and Sofia Carroll said they were fishing in Toba Inlet Friday when they saw a humpback whale.
The whale was about 100 metres away, they told CTV News in an interview Monday, but they still turned off the engine of their dinghy to avoid disturbing the giant.
The whale headed their way, they said, swimming under their dinghy and sticking close by for about two hours.
They were scared but couldn't leave, because they didn't want to put the motor down when the whale was so close.
At one point, the whale actually lifted their boat and swam with it. While they were amazed, they were also worried the humpback might puncture the boat's hull.
"Once it also got used to us, it started slapping the boat around and being more playful, and that's kind of when it got more scary," Carroll said, describing the "rollercoaster of emotions" they went through during those hours.
"What was more nerve-wracking was when it would slap the boat with its fins. We're in a dingy. It's inflated around the outside and (the whale has) these huge barnacles on its fins and it's hitting the boat. I was pretty stressed out," Lee-Dodek said.
"Here we are so far away from anything in a really deep fjord, so vulnerable, just at the mercy of this whale."
The whale did do some damage, albeit minor, to the underside of the boat.
The couple said it was a small price to pay for the experience.
Humpback whales have been making a comeback in recent years in B.C. waters after being hunted to near-extinction in the early 1900s.
According to Jackie Hildering, the whales in the video are known to the Marine Education & Research Society.
“There are two humpback whales shown in this encounter: KC, who I nicknamed when he was a first year with his mother, Houdini, in 2002, and Eros, who is a whale newly documented this year," Hildering said in an email to CTV News. "Eros is the whale who is closest to the boat.”
MERS describes the behaviour seen in the video, and the possible reasoning for it, in a blog post on its website from 2018. The post also explains concerns related to human behaviour in these situations.
The group reminded the public that touching a whale is an illegal act under the federal Marine Mammal Regulation, and said that its hope is the video doesn't encourage others to try to do the same thing.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada outlines laws and regulations on its website, and offers guidance for what to do to avoid disturbing marine mammals.
With an interview from CTV News Vancouver's Cameron Mitchell
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'I just can't believe that it took so long': Body found in wreckage 3 months after deadly fire
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
No proof man lied to brother about number of kittens born in litter, B.C. tribunal rules
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Work stoppage possible as WestJet issues lockout notice to maintenance engineers' union
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Quebec police hand out hundreds of tickets to Hells Angels and other bikers before 'first run' meeting
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Auston Matthews skates ahead of Game 7, status unclear with season on the line
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Russia puts Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on its wanted list
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
Snakes almost on a plane: U.S. TSA discovers a bag with small snakes in passenger's pants
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Feds hope to table foreign interference legislation next week: LeBlanc
Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he plans to table legislation this week to help the federal government address foreign interference, but he wouldn't say whether the proposal will include a foreign agent registry.