Aloha,
Lots to report from our weekend of Whale Watching…Friday was all about the babies. Both our Wake up with the Whales Cruise and our Signature Whale Watch Cruise spent time watching a pod of Mom and Baby. Guests on our Wake up with the Whales Cruise got to see the whales resting (or “logging”) in just 26 feet of water! Guests on the !0:00 Cruise saw their whales a bit deeper, but Mom and Baby were accompanied by an escort who made his appearance known fairly frequently.
On Saturday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise, we saw more than 25 different whales. Highlights included watching a bit of a whale “fight” involving just two whales who were chasing each other around. We got to see several head lunges and one jaw clap (the whale opened his mouth…probably to make himself look bigger to the other whale). We also saw several breaches, pec slaps and tail lobs. On Saturday’s 10:00 Cruise, we got the opportunity to watch several pods of two whales…including two whales who breached repeatedly just 50 yards off our stern! When we lowered the hydrophone on this cruise, we could hear some singing, but it was pretty faint.
And on Sunday’s 10:00 Cruise we watched 3 different Mom/baby pods. In the first pod we encountered, Mom looked like she was sleeping on the surface…baby rested on her rostrum perpendicularly for awhile, but then woke up and started playing all around her. When we first encountered our third Mom/baby pod, they were accompanied by an escort…until Mom made her point by breaching twice and head lunging 4 times. After that we never saw the escort again!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A baby whale, called a “calf” looks so small and cute when seen playing with her Mom. But everything is relative…when the calf is born, she can already be 10 to as much as 15 feet long, and she weighs 2000 to 3000 pounds! The calf is about 26 feet long when she’s weaned (at 10-11 months).