Whale Watching Gets Up Close And Personal For Arizona Couple

Whale watching can be really amazing, but an Arizona couple vacationing in Hawaii may have gotten more than they bargained for during a recent whale viewing canoeing trip off of the coast of Maui. A video published Sunday by Laurent Lebihan captures a canoe trip that almost went very wrong when a humpbacked whale got a little too close for comfort.

The video begins in serene ocean waters. Lebihan is taping the seemingly boring canoeing experience when a humpbacked whale jumps out of the water and nearly capsizes the canoe. The event happens extremely quickly. The camera begins shaking and then, suddenly, a whale jumps out of the water, giving the canoe a bit of a knock and causing the Arizona couple surprise. Luckily, the canoe manages to stay upright and nothing serious happens to them or their camera, which has led to the video recently going viral on the Internet.

In the video description, Lebihan notes that the humpback was a smaller, adolescent whale and that he and his girlfriend are lucky nothing bad happened. Either way, the video is not really a huge time commitment, and will only take up 37 seconds of your day. So far, it’s received over 490,000 page views, and if you are into whales or even fun and random vaction experiences, it’s certainly worth a view, especially for the unbridled enthusiasm we hear from Lebihan as he yells “Oh my God” and “wow” during the encounter.

You can catch more stills from the “love tap” over at the Daily Mail.