Aloha,
The weather was great this past weekend, and we ran lots of Whale Watch Cruises — we saw too much to report on everything, but here are some highlights.
Guests on our Friday Wake up with the Whales Cruise saw two different competitive pods of 5 Humpbacks charging along the surface. We also saw some breaching whales (or the splashes from them) a little further out to sea.
On Friday’s 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we got to see our first calf of the season! Of course we maneuvered the boat to stay 100 + yards from Mom and her baby, but the baby did his best to come see us. After awhile, Mom let him check us out…and then she did 4 FULL BREACHES just off our bow! Check out this video to see the action (baby makes an appearance too).
The fun continued on Saturday with guests seeing 20 different Humpbacks on our Wake up with the Whales Cruise. 4 of them were in a competitive pod, chasing across the surface. We saw peduncle throws from this pod, pec slaps, and even a full breach about 300 yards from the boat. On the 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, we saw lots of spouts, and watched one Humpback tail lob 42 times (a guest counted). At one point we turned off the engines so we could deploy our hydrophone. Before it was even in the water we could hear the whales singing — one of those male whales must have been very close by, because we could hear his song coming up through the hulls of the boat.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: As proven on Saturday’s cruise, we don’t always need to deploy our hydrophone to hear the whales singing. When singing whales are very close to the boat, their songs reverberate through the hulls. Is this experience responsible for the origin of the Greek myth of the sirens? In Greek mythology, sirens were the beautiful creatures who lured sailors with their enchanting music to crash on their islands. Now imagine you were a sailor in 2000 BC, listening to these haunting sounds in the hold of your ship…who (or what) would you think was responsible for their creation?