One paddler’s dream is another paddler’s nightmare, as demonstrated in a recent viral video in which two sea kayakers witness a humpback whale surfacing at close distance behind them off the coast of Newfoundland.
Coming face to fluke with a humpback whale
“My wife and I were sea kayaking off the coast of English Harbour, Newfoundland Labrador, Canada,” shared the paddler who submitted the video to Viral Hog. “We were not that comfortable with the aggressiveness of the feeding behavior. While attempting to get back to shore, we received the surprise of a lifetime.”
The video was originally shot on August 2, 2025. In the video, two kayakers can be seen rafted up when a humpback surfaces just behind the stern of the female paddlers sea kayak, while her husband, filming, repeated “Jesus”.
“Okay, let’s get out of here,” said the paddler filming as the humpback dove beneath their kayaks.
As the paddlers adjust to leave the area, two humpbacks can be seen surfacing now off the bows of their kayaks. The duo began to make moves to get out of the humpback’s feeding grounds just as a humpback fluke, or tail, surfaced.
Humpbacks and kayakers
The waters off the coast of Newfoundland are home to the world’s largest population of feeding humpback whales between the months of April and October according to Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism. Capelin, a small forage fish found in northern oceans, are the primary prey that make up the diet of area humpbacks, reported Canadian Science Publishing Blog. Humpbacks in the North Atlantic hunt capelin using lunge feeding, a strategy in which the whale dives beneath a school of fish then uses its fluke (tail) to propel their body forward as they resurface, according to Nature Canada. Humpbacks in Newfoundland have been reported to feed and lunge in groups of two to five individuals.
While many kayakers dream of close encounters with whales, encounters at the proximity seen in this video of sea kayakers in Newfoundland is relatively uncommon, and not always a treat.
In February 2025, a packrafter was briefly engulfed by a feeding humpback whale. In this encounter, 19-year-old Adrian Simancas had been paddling without issue with his father, who caught the event on camera. A whale surfaced beneath Simancas, and both paddler and packraft briefly disappeared before surfacing moments later. Both Simancas and his father escaped without further incident.
Meanwhile in 2021, a pair of kayakers in Moss Landing, California had a humpback whale breach and, as it appears in the viral video, came crashing down directly beside the kayakers sending them into the water. The kayakers, luckily, came away from the incident unharmed.
