Aloha,
We operated two different Wake up with the Whales Cruises on Tuesday — one on Manu Iwa, and one on Seasmoke, but guests on both boats were riveted to the activity provided by a pod of 4 whales (we’re pretty sure it was one female and 3 males). Though we saw spouts, dorsal fins, and flukes from more than 18 different Humpbacks, the four we spent our time with were competing pretty hardily. We saw lots of head lifts, a couple of breaches and lots of chasing around on the surface. We also got to see some bubble blowing (an aggressive display) from one of the whales. Guests on Alala’s 10:00 Cruise were the object of attention for two 45 foot Humpbacks who found the boat and wouldn’t leave! They spent 40 minutes diving and surfacing right next to the boat on all sides. They flashed their pectoral fins at us and spouted all over us. We also saw some breaching and tail lobbing from other whales further out, but after that 40 minute mugging, to tell you the truth, anything else we saw wasn’t quite as exciting.Finally, on our Sail with the Whales Cruise, we got the opportunity to watch Mom, her calf, and an escort just cruising along at the surface calmly. Eventually the baby lost patience with all that tranquility and breached…and then he did a little head lunge. It must have been fun, because that got him all wound up and he breached 30 or 40 more times before he finally wore himself out.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: At birth, a Humpback whale calf weighs between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds which is between 3% and 4% of his Mom’s weight. Interestingly, at birth, human babies are proportionally larger, averaging 4%-5% of their Mom’s weight.