A group of tourists learned the true power of whales when their boat was allegedly carried by one in March. A viral video shows a boat full of tourists speeding on the ocean on a whale’s back. A tourist filmed the video in a lagoon near Guerrero Negro in Baja California Sur, Mexico.
The video was allegedly taken by Lory Barra, who shared it with ViralHog. She told the site that she and other tourists played with a gray whale for “over two hours.” The whale appreciated the pets and kisses from Barra and the other tourists. They soon realized that the whale “gently” lifted their boat on its back twice. “She went fast enough to make a wake through my fingers,” Barra said.
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Barra’s video shows the boat being taken for a ride on the whale’s back. “She’s totally moving us! Oh my gosh! She’s totally moving us! Look at this,” she is heard exclaiming, notes PEOPLE. Someone in the video is heard jokingly asking the whale if it wants to take them to Alaska.
In her caption, Barra noted that she has been to Guerro Negro several times, and this has never happened to her. She described it as an “extremely rare” incident. “She’s moving us again,” Barra yelled in the clip. “Look at this! She’s taking us for a ride! … She’s going fast, too! Oh my gosh! I can’t believe this!”
“In the Part 2 video, she turned to look at me a few times, and we had a soul to soul experience between two mammals,” Barra wrote in her caption. “She waves at me with her pectoral fin as she lets our boat go. Almost touching my hand. She was double the size of our boat and weighed an estimate of 30 tons.”
The whale in the clip was a gray whale, which is now only found in the North Pacific Ocean due to commercial whaling that brought it close to extinction in the early 20th Century. They are known for their curiosity when boats arrive in their habitat, making them common sights for whale watching and ecotourism on the West Coast, notes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They have one of the longest annual migrations for any mammal on the planet, with some traveling up to 14,000 miles. They can grow up to 49 feet long and weigh about 90,000 pounds.
