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CORONADO, Calif., Oct. 1 (UPI) — A California surfer out riding the waves with his GoPro camera captured footage of his close encounter with a gray whale passing through the surf lineup.
Daron Case posted a video to YouTube from his Tuesday surfing session at Silver Strand State Beach in Coronado.
The clip shows Case’s board before he holds the GoPro camera underwater to record an unexpected visitor — a 20-foot gray whale.
“We were surfing not far out, just past where the waves break, and that’s where the whale was,” Case told ABC News. “The water clarity was really good, sort of like Hawaii. It’s not usually that clear so we got a view of the whale under water.”
Case said the encounter was unusual because whales don’t usually pass through the area until their November migration south.
The Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography said the whale in the video may have been ill.
“We believe the whale is sick mostly due to its thinness. A secondary indicator would be the number of barnacles, which can suggest that the whale is traveling rather slowly,” the aquarium said in a statement.12
