At a little before 8 a.m. Friday, veteran lobster diver Michael Packard entered the water for his second dive of the day.
His vessel, the “Ja’n J,” was off Herring Cove Beach and surrounded by a fleet of boats catching striped bass. The water temperature was a balmy 60 degrees and the visibility about 20 feet.
Licensed commercial lobster divers literally pluck lobsters off the sandy bottom, and as Packard, 56, dove down Friday morning, he saw schools of sand lances and stripers swimming by. The ocean food chain was in full evidence, but about 10 feet from the bottom Packard suddenly knew what it truly felt like to be part of that chain.
In something truly biblical, Packard was swallowed whole by a humpback whale.
“All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recalled Friday afternoon following his release from Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. “I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.”
Initially, Packard thought he was inside a great white shark, but he couldn’t feel any teeth and he hadn’t suffered any obvious wounds. It quickly dawned on him that he had been swallowed by a whale.
“I was completely inside; it was completely black,” Packard said. “I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’ All I could think of was my boys — they’re 12 and 15 years old.”
Outfitted with scuba gear, he struggled and the whale began shaking its head so that Packard could tell he didn’t like it. He estimated he was in the whale for 30 to 40 seconds before the whale finally surfaced.
“I saw light, and he started throwing his head side to side, and the next thing I knew I was outside (in the water),” said Packard, who lives in Wellfleet.
I dunno
Tough luck. Second time this week that’s happened to him.
…and Joe Biden won the election.
Fish story. I lived on cape cod for 4 years. I never met such a bunch of…exaggeraters…. in my life. They were entertaining. But not to be believed.
As George costanza said, ‘the sea was angry that day, my friend.”
But I will tell you a true story about piloting about Cape Cod many years ago. I was with my friend Dan and we came about the tip of Monomoy in the fog eastward and we were moving very slowly all of a sudden I saw a flipper come out of the water. It kept signaling with the flipper and we kept a wide berth. It was a pilot whale.
No incident. But wicked cool. I love that part of the world.
Absolutely beautiful. Great fishing.
I was lucky to live there. But the land creatures are simply unbearable. We had to leave.
I stayed one extra day to vote against Ted Kennedy for senate. For someone who has been posing as a conservative.
Mitt fucking Romney.
Sorry. This produced a core dump post. It’s all true.
Recreational weed is now legal on the Cape. Cue Patti Page.
This goofball likely stone-watched Disney’s PINOCCHIO the night before and had a flash-back when the whale bumped into him.
Where are all the witnesses?
“I don’t need no stinkin’ witnesses.”
Sixty-degree water is not “balmy”…
Diving while surrounded by a fleet of fishing boats…
A tall tale to tell at the next meeting of The Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge.
BTW, change the name of your boat to “Pfizer.”
“… like an old man trying to send back soup in a Deli”
if that whale’s name was kamala, he wouldn’t be here to tell his tale today
yeah, she does
lol
Provincetown, Cape Cod MA…
It was likely a deep-throat Commercial Street hooker that “swallowed” him. Some are as big as a whale, according to Teddy Kennedy.