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Travel+Leisure

This Paddle Boarder Accidentally Crashed a Humpback Whale Migration Party (Video)

Cailey Rizzo
Updated
The most spectacular moments are those you can’t prepare for.

The most spectacular moments are those you can’t prepare for.

A paddle boarder with a GoPro captured the incredible moment his board unexpectedly knocked into a pod of humpback whales.

A 28-year-old German backpacker named Alex was paddling off the eastern coast of Australia when he happened upon a pod of humpback whales.

Alex had been staying at the Surfaris Surf Camp in Crescent Head, Australia when he set out for the morning with his GoPro camera. While paddling, he came directly in contact with three humpback whales. One leaped directly onto Alex’s board while the others breached nearby.

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Alex "sat there filming them while they swam around him for three or four minutes," Ben Conn of Surfaris told Daily Mail Australia. “He then paddled south to back beach Crescent Head before turning back to Crescent Head point.”

The whales were likely on their migration north up the coast of Australia. Migration takes place every year between June and August. It is the time when they mate and give birth, according to the Australian Department of the Environment and Energy. They will migrate back south for feeding in September.

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