Boat crashes into humpback whale

An American tourist has captured a boat crashing into a humpback whale off Mexico.

NBC’s KPNX network reports that Gillian Panasweicz, of Arizona, photographed two whales breaching in front of her boat while on holiday in the Sea of Cortez in the Gulf of California.

Ms Panasweicz said the whales were frolicking in the water nearby as a pod of sea lions dived in and out of the water, seemingly playing a game of hide-and-seek with the whales.

"There’s two whales,” she told KPNX. “I think it’s like a mother and a baby. They hung around, and they were just playing and blowing."

She said she then saw a small boat crash into one of the whales as it headed in to the marina.

"It hit the whale, smacked into the whale,” Ms Panasweicz said. “We thought the boat was going to go over, but it didn’t. And they managed to right themselves, and they carried on -- going through the marina as if nothing happened."

She said the whale seemed uninjured after the collision, showing itself again soon after.

"This massive, great, big, beautiful beast just shot out of the water up into the air and crashed down, and the force of its body removed the water,” she said. “It was like an explosion. It was phenomenal."