The Chain
It was Michael’s second dive of the day. The water was almost tepid, and conditions ideal, with visibility at nearly 20 feet. Michael was headed down to the sandy bottom.
That was when he saw the massive shadow envelope everything. He had no time to make sense of it all or put up a fight. The next moment, he felt a hard bump, and everything went dark.
It Was A Passion
Michael Packard was an expert diver and had been working the waters off Provincetown, the northern tip of the Cape Cod peninsula, for a long time. He loved it and usually fished around Herring Cove Beach with his vessel, the “Ja n’ J.”
As a lobster diver, Michael was accustomed to hanging out around the sandy sea bed. It was a dangerous profession even at the best of times, and Michael found this out the hard way.
The Dangers
Lobster diving was growing in popularity. An estimated 30000 people a year recreationally fish these expensive crustaceans. The dangers of lobster diving were inherent.
Whether you chose to do it by free diving, with scuba gear, or nets, things like entanglement and being dragged out to sea by the current were ever-present dangers. However, as Michael Packard learned, some risks were unavoidable.
He Was Experienced
Micheal, unlike recreational lobster divers, did it as a living. The activity was strictly regulated now to protect both the divers and the environment. In all his time doing it, he knew about and took precautions against all common risks and dangers.
Michael knew that Cape Cod was well known for encounters with dangerous sea creatures too but he had gravely underestimated this particular danger.
Attacks Did Happen
Michael deeply respected the ocean and its creatures as they were his livelihood. He knew that there were many types of sharks that lived and hunted around the same waters where he dove.
The most notorious sharks around these parts were white sharks. They had been responsible for the majority of attacks in Cape Cod since 2012. However, they weren’t the only dangerous creatures there.
Shark Central
Cape Cod was infested with white sharks. It actually was known for having one of the highest concentrations of these types of sharks anywhere in the world.
Sharks, in general, are often misunderstood and nowhere close to being as aggressive as movies portray. However, the proximity of this number of sharks and humans does increase the risk of attacks.
Other Dangers
White sharks, although being the most common shark in Cape Cod, white sharks were far from the only species that lived and hunted there.
Other types of sharks known to frequent Cape Cod waters were tiger sharks and even great white sharks. Additionally, there was also another giant creature that roamed around here.
The Giants
Stingrays are dangerous in general. However, Cape Cod is famous for its unique population of these creatures. The type that lived here was aptly known as Giant Cape Cod Stingrays.
Known for its immense size, this specie of stingray was known to come as close as a few feet from shorelines and was as happy to swim around in shallow waters as it was in the open ocean. However, Michael Packard encountered something altogether different.
The Big Guys
The largest mammals on Earth, these remarkable giants of the ocean, were not usually a big concern to lobster divers at Cape Cod.
They were known to be gentle and were rarely ever dangerous, but as Michael Packard’s experience proved, there were exceptions. It started as a routine dive for him but soon turned into the most perilous encounter of his life.
He Was A Survivor
Michael Packard was no stranger to dangerous situations. Remarkably, in 2011, Michael survived a plane crash that took the lives of 3 other people, including the pilots.
Despite being seriously injured, after a story like that, Michael never guessed that he would end up in another astonishing situation.
The Giant
In June 2021, Michael, together with his sister and boat crew, headed out for a routine dive. Everything was going normally. Michael had his regular scuba gear and was heading towards the sandy bottom where the best lobsters were usually found.
It was his second dive that morning, and conditions were excellent; the water was warmer than usual. On his way down, Michael passed schools of sand lancers. Suddenly, he felt a strong bump before being enveloped by a giant shadow that made everything go dark.
A Unique Experience
Before Michael could make sense of what had happened, he felt himself being forcefully ejected and ended up back on the surface. No one could fully comprehend what they had just witnessed.
After being rescued and brought back to the boat, everyone else was as stunned as Michael about what had occurred. Unbelievably, Michael had been swallowed and thankfully spat out by a massive humpback whale.
An Accident
Whales weren’t known to be aggressive despite their colossal size. When the story broke, experts that weighed in on Michael’s hairy experience agreed that it was likely an accidental event.
Whales fed by sucking in vast amounts of microscopic plankton or small fish. In this case, the whale was most likely trying to feed on the school of sand lances nearby when Michael was inadvertently caught in the feeding vacuum its mouth created.
A Lucky Man
Luckily for Michael, the whale in question wasn’t a toothed one, and he was able to escape without serious injury. The oesophageal opening of a whale isn’t large enough to swallow a human.
It’s therefore likely that Michael was trapped inside its mouth for close to a moment before the irritation caused by his squirming torso caused the whale to spit him out again.
A Biblical Event
Unsurprisingly, Michael’s shocking encounter with the whale led many people to draw comparisons with a bible story. In the famous story, the biblical character Jonah was also said to have been swallowed by a whale.
Aside from “soft tissue damage”, Michael suffered no broken bones or other severe injuries. Whether his luck was divine or not, after his plane crash, this marked the second time that Michael Packard had been involved in an extraordinary accident and lived to tell the tale.