Mc Richard Paglicawan
A California surfer Daron Case was surfing at Silver Strand State Beach in the Coronado Cays when a gray whale swam right by all of the surfers and his GoPro camera captured footage of his close encounter. The video shows an unexpected visitor — an estimated of 20-foot gray whale.
Seeing a whale while surfing is not unusual for Case but seeing one at this time of the year is, he explained. Gray whales migrate south for the winter, which is what Case thinks this one was doing, but they usually don’t head south until November.
Meanwhile, 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
