Lightning has struck twice for Santa Barbara foil surfer Tavis Boise, who, after an
adrenaline-filled encounter with a shark just a month ago, recently had an intimate run-in with a mother gray whale and her calf while foil surfing off the Santa Barabra coast on May 26.
The duo breached right next to Boise, who filmed the magic interaction on a GoPro attached to his paddle. In the video, the mom kicks her tail and knocks Boise off his board before diving deeper into the water. He laughs in disbelief as he watches the pair swim away.
“That was absolutely nuts,” Boise says after the whales depart.
It started out as a normal, after-work foiling session for Boise, he later told the Independent. He and a friend were traveling downwind, just a quarter mile from shore, when the whales appeared. They were within spitting distance of the Rosewood Miramar Beach hotel.
What initially made Boise slow down was the sight of a “massive” sea lion devouring a fish, he said. But when he looked to his left, two “islands” popped out of the water. He was worried he may hit them, so he treaded cautiously.
“They’re really big. They don’t really look like animals; they look like actual land emerging from the ocean,” he described. “The mama was right there with the baby, and the baby seemed pretty curious, but the mom was being a little more protective … they just cruised right by.”
When the mama whale flicked her fluke and knocked him off his board, it sent him spinning “from all the turbulence,” he recounted. “They were going so fast, probably six or seven miles an hour, just up the coast.”
An estimated 28,000 Pacific gray whales journey through the Santa Barbara Channel — a natural, nutrient-rich corridor for multiple whale species — during their seasonal migrations between December and May.
Expectant mothers first journey to Baja California in the winter to give birth in the warm, shallow waters there. In spring, they pack up and head back to Alaska with their newborns.
For the record, those newborns are already 14-16 feet long and weigh more than 2,000 pounds.
Beginning in mid-February, as they make their way north, the mothers and calves hug the Santa Barbara coastline, usually no more than a few hundred yards from shore. Mid-May marks the tail end of gray whale migrations through the channel, but there are always stragglers, such as the pair Boise nearly bumped into.
He used the experience to remind his viewers on YouTube to always maintain a safe and respectful distance from marine wildlife. This encounter, he said, was unexpected and unplanned.
“It is easy to dream of these wildlife scenarios, but once you are actually face to face with a whale, all plans go out the window,” he wrote in his video description. “If you’ve never tried downwind foiling, this is why we do it. You never know what’s out there with you.”
Based on his repeated wildlife encounters, Boise may be a Disney princess, or Aquaman, in disguise. He laughed at the suggestion. “I only communicate with water animals,” he joked.
He’s worried he may next bump into an orca. A large pod was spotted near the Channel Islands just last month. While wild orcas almost never attack humans, the thought still terrifies him.
“This gray whale encounter was pretty cool — they’re so docile,” he said. “I just want to just have the utmost respect for marine life, especially ones that could definitely take you out.”
