Modern day Jonah: Chilean man swallowed by whale (and it’s on camera)

By Elizabeth Prata

Adrian Simancas was kayaking with his dad off the coast of Bahía El Águila near the San Isidro Lighthouse in the Strait of Magellan. This is at the very tip of Chile where there are a series of islands, through which ships pass so as not to round Cape Horn all the way at the bottom of Chile. Antarctica is not far below that.

So his dad was behind Adrian, with a camera on, recording. And on a nice , cold day, the pair were kayaking around. When suddenly a humpback whale came up and swallowed Adrian and his inflatable kayak. They disappeared from view.

A few seconds later Adrian is spit out, as he reappears at the surface yards away from the spot where he’d disappeared into the whale’s gullet, and moving sideways fast. A moment later came the yellow kayak.

What was going through is mind as he lost the view of the shore and the sky and was engulfed in darkness?

“I thought I was dead,” Adrián told The Associated Press. “I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me.”

It takes a bit for the mind to comprehend sudden, incredible circumstances you’re experiencing. But his assessment of the situation was correct. To be swallowed by a whale usually means you’re dead. Prophet Jonah had said,

I called for help from the depth of Sheol;
You heard my voice.
For You threw me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the current flowed around me.
All Your breakers and waves passed over me.
So I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight.
Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
Water encompassed me to the point of death.
The deep flowed around me,
Seaweed was wrapped around my head. (Jonah 2:2b-5).

Adrian said he was in terror. “I thought I had died. And no, there was nothing I could do.”

Jonah, rebellious as he was, knew what to do. He prayed.

But You have brought up my life from the pit, Lord my God.
While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, (Jonah 2:7).

What did it feel like? In this CNN news interview, Adrian said he felt a strong movement, stronger than a wave on his neck, then felt a “slimy texture on my face.” He said he could see colors like blue and white approaching him, then it went dark.

Adrian’s next thought as he was spit onto the surface, was that the whale would do something to his father. He next became concerned about getting to shore quickly to avoid hypothermia. His father paddled over and comforted his son.

Adrian in the end decided that the whale was curious, or perhaps wanted to communicate something.

There isn’t much more to the story than that. The video is only 59 seconds long. The only lessons here are: enjoy a quirky and unusual story. Secondly, you are clicking along in life and the next second everything changes. Something dramatic could happen to anyone at any time. Third, and most important, there is ALWAYS something you can do, and that is to ‘remember the Lord, and pray to Him.’ When circumstances change dramatically, as they did for Jonah, for Job, for Mary…knowing the Lord is the best comfort, refuge, and answer as to “why?!”

But God…

Jonah concluded his prayer:

But I will sacrifice to You
With a voice of thanksgiving.
That which I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation is from the Lord.

I thought this caption in the video was hilarious:

Here is a news interview.