SAN DIEGO — A recreational boater on a solo fishing expedition collided at high speed with a blue whale July 10.

Photo by: NOAA They’re Out There — A blue whale reportedly collided with Seid Hodzic’s 29-foot powerboat about 20 miles southwest of Point Loma.

The incident began after Seid Hodzic spent the morning aboard his 29-foot Fountain powerboat exploring a fishing area known as the 302 Bank, about 20 miles southwest of Point Loma.

Finding no fish, the 43-year-old Poway resident stopped briefly in the vicinity of Mexico’s Los Coronados islands. At about noon he headed toward his berth in Mission Bay and was cutting through the afternoon chop at about 22 to 24 knots when he felt the bow of his boat plunge. The vessel heeled violently to starboard and shuddered to a stop.

“It shook the entire boat,” Hodzic said. “The engine made a weird sound and I lost power, and the shift lever wouldn’t work. That’s when I saw a huge blue whale about 10 feet from the boat on the port side.”

Hodzic looked at the leviathan and saw no blood on the whale or in the water. The creature appeared to be unfazed by the collision and quickly slipped beneath the waves as though nothing happened. Hodzic couldn’t estimate the size of the mammal other than that it appeared to be fully grown.

“A private boater in a Grady-White powerboat nearby saw the whole thing happen,” Hodzic said. “He said he previously saw a female blue whale and her calf in the area.”

With the Fountain’s mangled outdrive wedged up, Hodzic looked over the transom and noticed a large crack on or near the bellows. Fearful his craft was flooding, Hodzic inspected the bilge and noticed water coming in — enough to fill the bilge to 3 inches in 15 minutes, he estimated.

Hodzic called Vessel Assist and operated the vessel’s bilge pumps periodically during the two-hour wait for a tow back to port. He never felt he was in danger of sinking, although his dog, a year and a half old mixed breed “goldendoodle,” appeared distraught.

“He was just lying down on the deck — you know dogs, they just look at you and you can see what they’re thinking — he probably was scared,” Hodzic said.

The vessel was towed to its berth at a Mission Bay marina and hauled out at Driscoll Mission Bay Boat Yard. A survey will likely be scheduled before repairs begin, Hodzic said.

Hodzic said his marine insurance company representative seemed surprised, but acted professionally.

“I’m glad I had a witness, because if you say you hit a whale, they’re going to say, ‘Oh, sure,’” Hodzic said. “It sounds like a fishing story. It’s hard to believe, but what are the odds? There were only a few boats in the area at the time.”

Hodzic figures the only reason he and the whale collided was that they were both headed in the same direction. He believes the whale surfaced under his boat’s hull rather than his boat striking the cetacean.

“I was looking ahead with a clear view and didn’t see anything,” he said. “We were both going north, kind of the same direction, and that’s why he didn’t see me when he surfaced. I don’t think I hit him with the keel of the boat. I think I hit him only with the outdrive, by the way the boat behaved.”

Neither Hodzic nor his dog sustained injuries.

Scientists say that blue whales are the largest animals ever to have lived on earth. Fully grown blue whales range from 80 to 100 feet in length and weigh as much as 200 tons.

Blue whales look blue underwater, but on the surface appear more mottled blue-gray.