Whales Watching (Us)!

Humpback Whale Sightings and Statistics|January 6, 2016

Aloha,

Guests who chose Tuesday’s Wake up With the Whales Cruise were treated to a wide variety of whale activities. Throughout the course of the cruise, we saw 10 different whales, but focused our attention on 6 of them who were in pods of 1 or 2 within about 250 yards of us. We saw 5 breaches from these whales, and a few peduncle throws. We also got to see a couple of whales just lounging on their sides on the surface with one of their pectoral fins straight up in the air (were they signaling something to another whale or just letting the wind evaporate moisture as a way to cool off?). On our Whales and Cocktails at Sunset Cruise, we saw 8 different whales, but were “mugged” by a pod of two for over 1/2 an hour. These two whales swam back and forth underneath us just below the surface of the water, giving us incredible views of their beautiful bodies — while presumably satisfying their curiosity about us as well! We also saw some tail lobbing, peduncle throws and even a breach.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The Whales “mugging” us are definitely taking a look at us. Though Humpbacks rely on their sense of hearing far more than any other sense, we do know that vision is also important to them. Based on the shape of the Humpbacks’ corneas, they can certainly see us…but, they’re probably a bit farsighted when looking through water and a bit nearsighted when looking through the air. And in case anyone asks you, Humpbacks have beautiful brown eyes. Their eyeballs weigh, on average, 2.16 pounds. Human eyeballs weigh about a quarter of an ounce.