A charter boat was thrown "out of the water" and passengers knocked unconscious after a collision with a whale off the coast of Bowen on Saturday.
A-One Fishing Charters skipper Oliver Galea was heading home from a day of fishing with five customers and two crew when the 30-foot boat "launched and left the water" north-east of Gloucester Island, Mr Galea said.
"Within a split second something has thrown the boat out of the water and dislodged everyone off their feet," he said.
"We were picking ourselves up and then realised there were a few injuries.
"It just happened so quick ... none of knew what happened, we were all stunned."
The impact threw Mr Galea into the dash and left him with a deep cut to his forehead, a man was knocked unconscious and left with a facial fracture, one broke two ribs and another man broke his nose.
"I had a split head, I didn't even feel it actually, blood was running down my face," Mr Galea said.
"Lucky we didn't flip because one of the people was unconscious, he headbutted the dash with me.
"He had a gash across his eye, he was knocked out."
The skipper said they only realised a whale had done a "hit and run" after a passenger saw a whale not far from the boat a few minutes later.
"When we were all getting off the floor, one of the people saw a whale in the distance," he said.
"We see whales all the time but usually they go down when they hear boat engines and stuff coming but there was no sign of this one before we even hit it.
"This one come up under the boat at the same time as we were crossing, he threw the boat upwards and sideways.
"I have a big dent in the left-hand side ... lucky it is an aluminium boat, if it was fibreglass it would have cracked it."
Everyone worked to help each other out as Mr Galea called emergency services.
An RACQ CQ Rescue helicopter accompanied the charter boat to Abell Point Marina at Airlie Beach where the injured were taken to Proserpine Hospital.
Mr Galea said despite the injuries, everyone was in good spirits and they all caught up on Sunday night to cook up the fish they had caught that day.
"They were all fishermen and they had been out fishing before but none of us had ever experienced that before," he said.
"We all caught up and told the stories last night.
"We have made good friends out of it, everyone is all good about it."
