Aloha,
Guests on both Manu Iwa’s and Seasmoke’s Thursday Wake up with the Whales Cruise saw spouts from more than 25 different whales…and since we left the bay heading different directions, I’m pretty sure they weren’t the same 25 Humpbacks!
Highlights from Manu Iwa’s cruise included watching one adult Humpback who was motionless with just the tips of his flukes sticking out of the water. We watched him for a long time, and suddenly he blew a whole stream of bubbles and surfaced. Not sure what all that was about!
Seamoke’s guests got to watch a competitive pod of 4 Humpbacks for over 90 minutes. These 4 never stayed under water for more than 3 or 4 minutes at a time, so we got to see a lot of action. At one point, the smallest of the 4 took a swing right down our starboard hull, just below the surface. The water visibility was excellent, so we could see his entire body as he swam past and then surfaced about 15 feet from us to spout. We also saw several head lunges, tail slashes and lots of twisting-around-each-other kind of interaction from this pod.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out our weekend recap on Monday!
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback fact of the Day: Researchers are not entirely certain exactly how the Humpbacks find their way from Alaska to Hawaii each winter. After all, Hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world. Since small particles of a form of iron called “magnetite” have been found in Humpbacks’ brains, some researchers theorize that the magnetite acts like a magnet, helping the Humpbacks to feel the magnetic pull of the earth and keeping them on track. Other researchers disagree, claiming that the Humpbacks swim in such straight lines when they migrate that they must be orienting themselves with a combination of methods, including some celestial markers like the position of the sun during the day, and the stars at night.