In the winter of 1999 a southern right whale migrated from the cold waters of Antarctica to a Sydney beach. The appearance of this species of whale off Sydney caused much interest with hundreds of people lining Cronulla beach and watching the whale frolic some 200 yards offshore. At the time I had a letter of permission from the National Parks and Wildlife to get within the exclusion zone and film wild whales on SCUBA at close range. The second morning of the animals arrival gave me the chance to film a whale I had never been exposed to before. I took my gear and video camera down to the beach where a life saver boat transported me out to the whale.

My first thoughts were "god how big it is" the whale was over 40 feet long , a large adult female that was probably expecting. Its stomach was well extended and from the footage already shot from helicopters the experts believed she was about to give birth.

My hope was to film the whale giving birth, a world first in the wild. I entered the water and swam to the whale that was cruising the surface with an occasional tail splash. When I came to 20 odd feet from the huge animal I descended to about 30 feet and continued by approach. At about 15 feet the whale turned and faced me then swam towards me very slowly. The huge head of the whale came within a few feet before the animal dived down to swim along the bottom at around 40 feet. I followed the whale filming as I went. She turned again towards me this time pushing me slowly through the water as if playing. I literally tumbled down her back.

Again and again she pushed me, other times cruising up to bring her head side on to look at me. I took a close up of her eye with my still camera around my neck. The photo made the front page of a Sydney news paper "The Leader" To put it simply I was having a ball with this playful giant.

For three days I swam and filmed and played with the whale until she began to do something unusual. She began to rub her belly against the sand bottom. This she did slowly with her tail bent in an upward direction. I took this behaviour as a sign that she may be getting ready to give birth to her calf. The concept that I may be the first man to film a southern right whale giving birth in the wild excited me greatly. I swam behind the whale and then swam under the huge tail hoping to film the birth. The whale continued rubbing her tail against the sand with me kicking as hard as I could to keep my position under her tail. Then she decided to surface for air and brought her heavy tail down crushing me against the sand bottom.

The initial impact squeezed all the air from my lungs and cracked two vertebrae in my back. As the whale surfaced I was left on the sea bed gasping for air, not knowing if my lungs and spine were completely crushed or not. All I wanted to do ,was to breathe. I lay on the bottom for over 15 minutes before I could breathe with ease. After the dive I felt bruised with a very sore back. After an xray, it was found the whale had broken two discs in my back.

See photo taken by David Ireland of the Southern White Whale at Cronulla Beach.

For more information about David please click here.