This is the astonishing moment a deep sea diver almost became lunch after getting a bit too close to a whale.

Rainer Schimpf got caught in a Bryde whale’s mouth as he swam with friends in the seas around South Africa.

The situation has been compared to the bible story about Jonah, who was said to have lived inside a whale for three days before being spat out.

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Luckily Rainer’s experience was much shorter – and astonishingly all of it was captured on camera by his friend.


Rainer, who is director of Dive Expert Tours, had set off with a team to document a sardine run when events took a surprising turn off Port Elizabeth Harbour, east of Cape Town.



The team was 25 nautical miles from shore, trying to film a shark going through a bait ball when Rainer said his surroundings became dark and he felt the large whale trying to grab hold of his body.

Rainer Schimpf in the mouth of the Bryde’s Whale (Picture: Heinz Toperczer / Barcroft Media)

Rainer described how everything went black (Picture: Heinz Toperczer / Barcroft Media)

Rainer is now back on dry land (Picture: Barcroft Media)

He recalled: ‘I could feel the pressure on my hip, there is no time for fear in a situation like that – you have to use your instinct.’

‘Nothing can actually prepare you for the event when you end up inside the whale – it’s pure instinct.

‘I held my breath because I thought he is going to dive down and release me much deeper in the ocean, it was pitch black inside.’

Fortunately after a few moments, the whale spat out Rainer, 51, and went back to eating fish.

The astonishing scenes were caught by Rainer’s colleague and photographer Heinz Toperczer, who kept the camera focused on his buddy and watched on in horror from the team’s boat.