Aloha,
Guests on our Wednesday 10:00 Whale Watch got a chance to watch our favorite trio of whales…Mom, her baby, and an escort,…just south of Kawaihae Harbor. We watched these three for around 30 minutes. They were relaxing, just spouting and kind of sinking down below the surface. After watching them for awhile, we headed towards a few more spouts and saw some big adults spout and dive. We encountered our pod of Mom, baby and escort on the way back to the harbor, so we stopped to watch them again and were very surprised when another big adult Humpback surfaced on our port side, spouted, dived, and then came up very close to us on our starboard side…swimming right under us!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: We frequently see Mom and Baby whale accompanied by a third whale who we call the “escort” or “tender”. We used to think this was a female helping mom take care of her baby, but now that we can identify gender more easily, we know it isn’t. It’s a male. This male is not the father of the calf (unless it’s a very strange coincidence). So why is he there? Though a new mom infrequently ovulates, researchers believe that perhaps the male whale is “hoping to make a good impression” so when she is receptive, he may be the first to mate with her.