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A fisherman on Long Island had a close call with a humpback whale — with dramatic video showing the colossal mammal launching out of the water and smashing into the boat.
The whale — which typically weighs between 50,000 and 80,000 pounds — is seen in the wild clip causing the surrounding fish to flee before it leaps from the ocean and busts the boat’s hatch open as it collides with the vessel.
“I thought we might be going down, but the boat was OK, the whale was OK. It was just crazy,” the startled fisherman, Steven Heid, told News 12.
Heid said he was out fishing with his father-in-law and nephew off Moriches Inlet on the East End adjacent to Fire Island when they spotted the whale a few hundred yards away.
The mammal then began moving toward their boat, at which point he shut off the engine to avoid hurting the beast with the propeller.
Heid’s nephew, Oliver Samter, began recording as the whale swam closer to the vessel. Just seconds later, the giant humpback can be seen shooting straight out of the water.
“I was like, ‘Holy cow, what just happened?'” Samter told the outlet.
Recently, whales and sharks have been making a comeback in Long Island’s waters after decades of preferring other areas, the Post previously reported.
In late June, a gigantic 12-foot-long, 1,000-pound great white shark was tracked off of Long Island’s East End, and the largest great white ever discovered in the Atlantic Ocean was trailing behind it.
“There was a time when seeing a whale here was a rare event,” the New York State Nature Conservancy Oceans and Fisheries Director Carl LoBue said in August.
“Now, there are multiple whale watching boats spotting whales nearly every day, and many times you can see them from the beach,” he added.