Aloha,
On Monday’s 8:00 Wake up with the Whales Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay, guests saw quite a few whales. All the action was just north of the bay from about the Mauna Lani condos to Hapuna Beach, so we didn’t have to travel far at all. We watched 5 or 6 different whales (it’s sometimes difficult to count)…and they were active. Besides seeing lots of spouting and fluke dives, we saw a couple of breaches about 100 yards from the boat, and some tail lobs and pectoral slaps a little further out. Due to the strong and gusty winds in Kawaihae, we moved our 10:00 Whale Watch to Manu Iwa and ran it from Anaeho’omlau too. Even though we left from the same location just moments after the first cruise returned, on this cruise we found just two whales. One was quite a bit smaller than the other (maybe Mom and her yearling?). These two were mostly just surfacing, spouting and diving for 12 minutes at a time. And their underwater path was quite unpredictable, so every time they surfaced their new location completely surprised us!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: There are 11 different populations of 11 Humpback Whales. They live in all the oceans of the world. The whales we see here each winter are part of the North Pacific population. “Our” whales feed in the waters of the Gulf of Alaska during the summer months. They swim the approximately 3000 miles to Hawaii each year presumably for social reasons…to give birth to their calves and to mate.