A diver experienced the joys of a lifetime when she filmed a humpback whale and its calf swimming nearly inside arm’s reach of her within the Maldives.
Ana Hernández Sarriá filmed her close encounter while swimming in the nice and cozy Indian Ocean waters near South Male’ Atoll Maafushi, one among the Maldives’ tropical islands, in September.
In Sarriá’s video, the humpback whales will be seen swimming side-by-side with the mother on the left and the calf on her right. Throughout them, the water is a deep, cerulean blue with rays of sunshine streaming down into the ocean’s depths.
The whales seem like unbothered by Sarriá and her fellow divers, giving her a near-perfect profile view of their enormous fins, tails and bodies.
Then, they turn left, swimming away from the divers. As they swim, Sarriá’s left hand enters the frame as she reaches for the whales as they disappear within the bubbly white surf and dark blue waters.
Sarriá posted her video of this experience to her Instagram account on September 18, saying that “life is just amazing.”
In line with the International Whaling Commission, humpback whales are mostly observed within the Maldives from June to October.
