I was surfing at Chesterman’s Beach in Tofino. As I started paddling, I could see some sprays in the distance, so I knew there was a whale out there-there were lots of people around on the beach and in the water watching, it’s always really exciting to see a whale regardless of where you are.

As I paddled out, I kept seeing the sprays in the distance which was really exciting-I’ve never seen a whale from the water before, I’ve seen them from the beach before at Long Beach.

As I kept surfing, I kept seeing the sprays and at one point while I was sitting, waiting for the waves I saw the body of the whale, just a bit, it went up and over of the water and I saw the back and the dark colours which made me think it was a humpback. That was really cool to get to see if while I was in the water on a surfboard and share it with the other people who were in the water.

It was really humbling and its interesting to remember that your’e sharing the water with such big fantastic animals-pretty awesome

-Selby

This post was adapted from a voice recording in the twenty ninth episode of the Whale Tales Podcast, listen here