Pittwater Life December 2023 Issue

Shock encounter had
News
As Jason Breen was
being dragged by the
humpback whale way
below the surface to what
seemed like his inevitable
doom, the Newport-based
wing foiler remembers
thinking: “No-one would
ever believe this!”
A few seconds earlier,
Jason had been enjoying
the Southerly in Mona Vale
basin, close to the beach.
It was almost 11am on
October 25 and he had just
completed his first run of
the morning out towards the
open ocean, wallowing in the
sunshine and near-perfect
wind foiling conditions.
He had just turned and
was heading back to the
wave area when suddenly
an ominous shape appeared
on the surface, about two
metres to his right.
“I knew it was a whale,
not a shark, straight away,”
the 55-year-old recalls.
That didn’t make the
close encounter any less
dangerous.
“It grew in size as it
emerged from the water.”
Within a second or two the
breaching humpback was
“above my head and I knew I
was in trouble”.
As it came crashing down
onto Jason’s wind foil,
“it hit my shoulder and
chest”. That might not have
been too bad, but Jason’s
wing leash had got caught
and as the giant mammal
plunged to the depths, the
Newport businessman was
undergoing the initial stages
of drowning.
On the plus side, this
humpback was probably a
calf because its body wasn’t
covered in razor-sharp
barnacles – as many mother
adults are – which would
have resulted in Jason’s body
being mutilated when it was
found.
Jason tells Pittwater Life he
estimates he was dragged up
MILLION-TO-ONE INCIDENT: Jason Breen knows he is lucky to be alive.
to nine metres deep, his face
slapping against the meatlike
skin of the calf.
Then, as suddenly as the
humpback had appeared,
it disappeared. Normally a
wing foiler wouldn’t want
the leash securing him
to his craft to break. But
he felt a pop as the wing
leash snapped, allowing a
breathless Jason to return to
the safety of the surface.
He feels he was dragged
down for between 20 and
30 seconds. His first words
on getting to the surface
– recorded by his Go-Pro –
were “Shit! I just got hit by a
whale!”
Back on the wing foil,
Jason discovered his
Go-Pro had recorded the
encounter. At the same
time, Paul Nettelbeck – a
Mona Vale local who was
having a morning coffee at a
headland cafe – had grabbed
video footage of the incident
on his phone.
By evening the story had
gone viral in print and on TV
around Australia. However,
the worldwide interest has
been massive too: “I have
been interviewed 50 times in
12 different languages.”
He emerged relatively
unscathed, telling a New
Zealand wind-surfing
platform the next morning,
“I’ve got a bit of whale
14 DECEMBER 2023
The Local Voice Since 1991