Whale breach off Bethany Beach leaves nearby paddleboarders elated to capture it on video

Three paddleboarders had a glorious encounter with a humpback whale just off the coast of Bethany Beach earlier this month – and it wasn’t the first time.

Lili Oller is still elated over the experience.

“Every time we watch (the video) we go right back to that moment,” the Ocean View resident said. “It’s surreal. It was euphoric.”

Oller is part of a group of women (and a few men) that she calls the “Mermaid Mamas” that paddleboard off Bethany Beach nearly every morning.

“We’re always chasing something. Always surrounded by dolphins or rays or mola molas,” Oller said. “There’s all kinds of everything out there.”

Sometimes, the paddleboarders bring recorders (the musical instruments), which Oller said the dolphins love.

They’ve seen whales breach four times in the past few years, according to Oller. Even though they are likely different whales, the paddleboarders call them all by the same name.

“We named it ‘Dick’ the first time it came around, you know, from ‘Moby Dick,’” she said.

More: Beached fin whale at Delaware Seashore State Park dies; necropsy to be performed

A close encounter with a whale

Around 7:30 a.m. on June 8, Oller, Bart Elling of Ocean View, and Lynn Donnelly of Bethany Beach were paddleboarding about 50 yards off the beach at Garfield Parkway when “Dick” showed up right next to Elling’s board.

“So we were coming back, right in front of the main beach, and we see a whole pod of dolphins, and then we see the puff, and then we lost it,” Oller said.

Elling said the whale dove under his board, but the wave the motion produced knocked him off. He wasn't afraid, he said, and he and the whale never touched.

"It was epic," he said. "It still is."

The paddleboarders guessed the whale to be a humpback, and they were correct, according to Suzanne Thurman, executive director of the Lewes-based Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute. Thurman said she was able to make the identification by the shape and position of the whale's dorsal fin and its movement.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @MarvelMcNaught.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Bethany Beach paddleboarders capture whale breach experience on video