A lone paddleboarder had, in his own words, “the encounter of a lifetime” a few miles off Dana Point, California, on August 24, when a blue whale surfaced a few feet away from him.

Bill Clements told Storyful: “I saw what I thought was a boat wake, but there were no boats in the vicinity. As I stared at the wake, suddenly the dorsal fin pierced the surface and a blue whale, four or five times longer than my 14-foot paddleboard, came up to breathe.”

The footage, recorded by Clements, shows the whale making its way to the surface before breathing out as the man loudly cheers.

“Oh my God!” he can be heard saying repeatedly, “oh my God, he’s coming up!”

“I was so in awe of its presence I couldn’t help but get a little choked up,” he said.

Clements said that he would typically paddle for three or four hours at a time, in search of dolphins and ocean life, but added that this experience “trumped” anything he had encountered before.

“It was heart-stopping to be so close to something that big,” he said.

Clements uploaded the footage to his Instagram account, where he regularly posts highlights of his paddling adventures and wildlife encounters. Credit: Bill Clements @paddlegoat via Storyful

Video transcript

BILL CLEMENTS: Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god, he's right there. Oh my god. Oh my god.

[LAUGHING]

Oh my god! Oh my god! Look at him! Look at him!

Oh my god, he's right there. Look at that. Look at that. Look at that! Oh my god, there he comes up! He's coming up! He's coming up! He's coming up!

Oh my god! Oh my god! Woo-hoo! Oh my god!

[LAUGHING]

Oh my god, look at the tail! Look at the tail! Oh my god! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Look at that. Look at that. Look at that tail! Oh my god!

He's right underneath me. He's right underneath me.

Hi, buddy. Wow, you're amazing. You are amazing. He's right there. Look at him. Look at him. He's right there. Oh my Lord. Oh my Lord. Look at that. Look at that. He's spinning around. He's turning around. Now he's on his belly. Now he's on his belly.

[LAUGHING]

Oh my god. He's looking at me. He's looking at me! Oh my Lord! Oh my god. Oh my god. What is he doing? Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going?

Look at him. There he is. There he is. Oh my god. (LAUGHING) Oh my god. Oh my god. Look, there he is. There's his tail. There's his tail. He's going deep now.

Hi, buddy. Oh, wow.

Look how big he is. Look how big that guy is. That's a big mama.