A paddleboarder attempting to keep his distance from a gray whale off Southern California had a hard time of it because it kept coming at him.
“A couple of times he popped up right next to me, I saw the tail pop up right next to me,” Doug Griffith told the Orange County Register. “I just think it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I spend a fair amount of time in the water and you don’t see a whale every day.”
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Photographer Matt Larmand, who captured video of the close encounter off Capistrano Beach in Dana Point on Sunday, told the Register it’s the closest he’s seen whales come to shore along this stretch of beach. It came within 10 to 15 feet of the beach at times. It also came quite close to Griffith, who told the Register it kept zigzagging at him.
“[The whale] was not keeping the 6-feet away like he was supposed to,” Larmand told the Register.
For Griffith, who was paddling with his son and dad, the outing was a nice alternative to the whale-watching trip he and his son Fritz were scheduled to be on in Baja. It was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I don’t need to go to Baja now,” Fritz told his dad.
