Aloha,
Hope your weekend was as fun as ours! We operated a lot of Whale Watch Cruises this weekend, and had multiple sightings on every cruise — too much to report in one email, so here are a few highlights:
We ran two Whale Watch Cruises on Christmas Day — one out of Anaeho’omalu Bay and one out of Kawaihae Harbor. Regardless of which cruise our guests chose, they got to see 8 or 9 different Humpbacks multiple times. We saw multiple breaches on each cruise too (one within 50 feet of the boat). We got to deploy the hydrophone during the Wake up with the Whales Cruise and heard some of our first, loud clear sounds this season. And on our 10:00 Cruise we were accompanied by a couple of big Bottlenose Dolphins for awhile. What a treat! On Saturday’s Wake Up With the Whales Cruise, we got to see a sub-adult Humpback breach 3 times right off our bow. We also saw quite a few spouts and dives from several larger whales all around us.
It looks to us that the Humpbacks are returning in full force!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: All whales, regardless of species, age, or gender make noises. Only Humpback whales sing an organized song…and only male Humpbacks sing. We used to believe that the males only “sing” when they are in the warmer waters where they mate. Now that we’re listening more closely, we have heard the males singing a bit in their colder feeding waters (mostly at the end of feeding season prior to the beginning of the migration). So, is the male Humpback singing a mating song? Researchers have observed that female whales will not approach a singing male, so if the males are singing to bring the females closer to them, it seems to be pretty ineffective.