[imagesource: Flickr]

Playing ‘Never Have I Ever’ must be fun with this guy.

A South African marine conservationist is retelling the tale of the time he narrowly survived after being caught in the jaws of a whale.

Rainer Schimpf was swept into the mouth of a large Bryde’s whale off the coast of Port Elizabeth while snorkelling and filming a sardine run in February 2019.

Per Cape Talk, Schimpf spoke to Kfm Morning, saying that when he looked down there were lots of sharks and some penguins, “we were watching that for less than a minute and then suddenly it got dark”.

Image: Silke Schimpf/Barcroft Images

He said he knew it had to be a whale because if it was a shark he would have been dead. He also knew he would be fine as the whale wouldn’t want to swallow him and ultimately hurt itself:

“My only thought was that it cannot swallow me because the throat of a Bryde’s Whale, in particular, is only about the size of your lower arm.”

Schimpf just said he held his breath and hoped to be released from the whale’s mouth as soon as possible:

“I was wondering when is it going to release me. When I had the incident it was about 80 meters deep and normally they go through the bait ball. And there was lots of fish with me in that situation in the mouth. [It could have also] dived down and released me somewhere further down.”

Eventually, the whale distinguished the difference between Schimpf and the fish and spat him out, completely unharmed, with not a single bruise to show for it:

“One can now understand how sensitive those animals are. You can imagine how careful these huge, giant marine creatures are. They definitely do no harm to humans.”

You can listen to the radio interview with Kfm Mornings below:

Per an old Guardian article, Schimpf’s wife, Silke, watched on in horror from their boat, photographing the marine feeding frenzy that included her husband as food for a moment.

Apparently, when Schimpf finally reached the surface of the water, he took a breath and rejoined his fellow snorkelers who were unaware of his recreation of the Bible’s Jonah.

[source:capetalk]