Very is now normally used only to modify adjectives and adverbs, not verbs: it is not a normal adverb. Normal adverbs can modify verbs.
You were exactly at the right place.
You were *very at the right place.
Here exactly modifies the verb were, you could say, or the predication were at the right place. Very cannot do this.
The word like was originally an adjective, and as such it could be modified by very, I believe, as in your very like a whale. It worked just like worth, with a postpositional object:
The house is worth a ton.
The house is like a ton.
This same construction survived up to the present time, obviously, but it is now not always felt to be a true adjective any more. It is rather felt to be a preposition in this construction (and a conjunction in that's just like I did it, which is still not accepted by everyone in formal writing). As a preposition, it usually does not admit of modification by very, just as at the right place above does not.
Very near a whale
This sounds a bit unusual to me, which is probably because near went through a similar development from adjective to preposition.
The Near East.
God is near.
In these examples, near is used as an adjective.
God is near the second cloud on your right.
Here as a preposition, or, if you want to look at it etymologically, as an adjective with a postpositional modifier (the second cloud on your right).
Prepositions are formed continually in all languages I know (which are admittedly all Indo-European), this is a natural process. It is said that prepositions were relatively new in Proto-Indo-European. They may even have formed only in later stages, as a convergent development in the later proto-languages. Our older prepositions do seem to originate in adverbs, not adjectives:
That ball is out.
That ball fell out.
? That out ball is interesting.
I would read the last sentence as a ball that was "out" in tennis or something, a fairly modern instance of ellipsis.
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