Shawn Stamback and three friends were scuba diving last weekend off the coast of California exploring a coral reef when they were nearly swallowed by a pair of nature's biggest beasts, the humpback whale.
The massive whales lunged out of the water with their huge jaws open as they chased a school of fish right next to the swimmers.
"I still don't know how they got that close to us without us knowing," Stamback, 39, of San Louis Obispo, told ABCNews.com. "I was probably like six to eight feet away."
"The first thing that went through my head was that I didn't want to get swatted by the tail because you see two whales that are moving away from you and you know how long they are," he said.
Stamback, the owner of Slodivers, a charter scuba diving company, and his three fellow divers were in between dives Saturday morning off Morro Bay in central California when Stamback and another diver decided to dive back in to snorkel.
After a few minutes in the water the two men saw a swarm of fish shoot up to the ocean's surface. Not far behind them, looking for their next meal, were the two humpback whales.