Humpback whales are among the largest animals alive, yet they can launch almost their whole body into the air. In 2017 a scuba diver named Craig Capehart caught one doing exactly that off Mbotyi, on South Africa's Eastern Cape coast: an adult humpback rose straight out of the sea, hung for a moment with clear air beneath its tail, and crashed back down a short distance from his boat.
The short answer to the question most viewers ask is yes, this is real, and no, it is not something you see every day. Humpbacks breach often, but most breaches lift only part of the body clear of the surface. A leap where the tail flukes leave the water too is far less common, and very few have been filmed at such close range.
The video from Mbotyi
Capehart was out on the Indian Ocean in a small inflatable boat, the kind South Africans call a "rubber duck", when the whale appeared. He kept filming as the animal surged upward, and you can hear the people on board react as it lands. He judged the whale to be roughly forty tons, a figure that should be read as an estimate made from a moving boat rather than a measurement.
In his caption on YouTube, Capehart described the clip as a first. In his words, "It seems that never before has a recording been made of an adult humpback whale leaping entirely out of the water!" That is his own claim, not an established record. Whale-watchers and researchers have photographed full breaches before, so it is safer to call the footage unusually clear and unusually complete rather than unique.
Mbotyi itself is a small settlement on the Wild Coast, a rugged stretch of the Eastern Cape known for its cliffs, river mouths and the huge shoals of the winter sardine run, which draw dolphins, sharks, seabirds and whales close to shore.
How big is an adult humpback?
Most adult humpbacks measure about 14 to 15 metres, and some individuals reach 16 or 17 metres. Females tend to be slightly longer than males. The heaviest adults are thought to reach around 40 metric tons, so Capehart's estimate sits at the top of the normal range rather than beyond it. Some reports of the clip quoted a lower figure of about 36,000 kg; either way, the point stands that this is an animal heavier than a loaded truck.
What makes the leap possible is power, not lightness. A humpback builds speed underwater with strong strokes of its tail, then angles upward and keeps driving until most of its body leaves the water. The long pectoral fins, which can be close to a third of the body length, help with balance and steering. Gravity does the rest, and the splash that follows can be seen and heard from a long way off.
Why do whales breach?
Nobody can ask a whale, so scientists work from patterns: who breaches, when, and what other whales do afterwards. Several explanations have support, and they are not mutually exclusive.
- Communication over distance. The crash of a breaching whale carries far through water. Researchers studying migrating humpbacks have found that breaching is more common when groups are far apart, while slapping a fin or tail on the surface is more common when they are close, which suggests these behaviours work as signals at different ranges. BBC Earth reported on this research in 2016.
- Play and social display. Young whales breach repeatedly, and adults sometimes do it in bouts, which looks a lot like play or showing off.
- Removing parasites. Humpbacks carry barnacles and whale lice, and the impact of landing may help dislodge some of them.
The second video below looks more closely at this kind of surface behaviour and what it may mean.
Humpbacks on the South African coast
The humpbacks seen off South Africa belong to a population that spends the southern summer feeding in the cold waters around Antarctica and migrates north in winter to breed around south-eastern Africa, including the coasts of Mozambique and eastern South Africa. Their route takes them close to the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, which is why mid-year boat trips along these shores so often meet them.
Winter is also the season when male humpbacks sing. Their songs are long, structured sequences of moans, whoops and clicks that can last from a few minutes to more than half an hour and be repeated for hours. Only males sing, and the exact purpose is still debated, though most explanations involve mating.
A comeback worth celebrating
The fact that encounters like this are possible at all is a conservation success. Commercial whaling cut humpback numbers to a few thousand by the 1960s, and the International Whaling Commission banned commercial hunting of the species in 1966. Since then most populations have recovered, and the IUCN now lists the humpback as Least Concern, with an estimated 135,000 animals worldwide. One small, isolated population in the Arabian Sea remains endangered.
The threats have changed rather than disappeared. Entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships, underwater noise and changes in the ocean caused by a warming climate all affect whales today.
Watching whales responsibly
If a clip like this inspires you to go looking for humpbacks, choose an operator that follows local whale-watching rules. South Africa, like many countries, regulates how close boats may approach whales, and a breaching animal can land with enormous force. The best sightings happen when the whale decides to come closer, not when a boat chases it.
Keep your expectations open, too. Many trips see blows, backs and flukes rather than full leaps, and that is still a privilege. A moment like the one Capehart filmed is the exception that makes people go back to sea again and again.
Sources: Video by Craig Capehart (YouTube); My Modern Met: Rare video captures 40-ton whale leaping fully out of the water; Wikipedia: Humpback whale; Wikipedia: Wild Coast; story first shared by Truth Theory.
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