Whales breach feet from vacation boat

ROCKY POINT, Mexico (NBC/KPNX) - An Arizona woman on vacation in Mexico captures some stunning images of whales while in Mexico -- even getting up close and personal with the magnificent creatures as one of them breached right in front of her boat.

Gillian Panasweicz from Prescott has one eye-popping whale of a tale that's getting a lot of attention.

Panasweicz captured candid shots of these whales leaping out of water while on vacation in the Sea of Cortez and posted them on Facebook.

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

The whales were frolicking in the water, and a pack of sea lions nearby dove in and out of the water -- playing a game of hide-and-seek with the whales.

And then she saw a Mexican boat racing toward the marina that crashed into one of the whales.

"It hit the whale, smacked into the whale,” 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."

Panasweicz and her friends said the whale did not look like it was injured. And just before they took off to go back to shore the whale all of a sudden – and only 20 feet away -- showed off its body and breached in front of them.

"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."