Avila Beach diver almost gets swallowed by whale

Wednesday, August 7th, 2013

While diving two and a half miles off the coast of Avila Beach near Souza Rock, Shawn Stamback of San Luis Obispo and three of his friends came face to face with two humpback whales during feeding time. Stamback runs a website called SLODivers.com that uses GoPro cameras to document diving spots along the Central Coast. He and his friends – Francis Antigua of San Luis Obispo, Jay Hebrard of Atascadero and Jeremy Bonnett of San Diego were taking a break from their first dive of the morning to allow the nitrogen gas to exit their bloodstream, which is called a “surface interval”. While on their break, Antigua and Stamback decided to go snorkeling allowing Bonnett and Hebrard to rest on the boat. At around 11:30 a.m. a large school of fish came rushing towards the two men in the water. Closely following the fish were two enormous humpback whales that rose out of the water with their mouths open, swallowing an abundant amount fish and went back underneath the blue surface of the waves. The men quickly returned to their boat and went ashore, not pressing their luck any further for that day. Later they posted it to YouTube hoping it would draw the attention of the media and go viral, it worked.

Watch the video

Warning, the following video contains several expletives.

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