Aloha,
On Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise we found our favorite pod of three — Mom, her calf, and an escort, just outside of the bay. What first got our attention was a lot of splashing — which, as we approached, turned out to be from the calf playing around on the surface. We got to see a couple of tail lobs from this little guy, and got to watch as Mom pushed him around perpendicularly to her, balancing him on her big head. The escort made an appearance every 20 minutes…but Mom and baby were on the surface for our entire cruise.
On Saturday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise, we saw spouts from 2 Humpbacks and were very surprised when a totally different one decided to surface right in front of us. Of course we stopped immediately, and watched while this whale clearly took a look at us, dove, and then surfaced right off our starboard rail before sounding and disappearing. We also operated a Private Charter on Saturday afternoon, and got to see Mom, Baby and Escort. Baby apparently had some energy to burn as he breached a few times as they traveled past us.
On Sunday’s Wake up with the Whales, we didn’t even see a spout, but we did get an opportunity to deploy our hydrophone and listen to some very clear singers. Since just hearing the whales isn’t what we’re all about, we called the cruise a ‘fluke’ and invited everyone aboard to join us again on another Whale Watch Cruise for FREE. Guests on Sunday’s 10:00 Cruise not only saw spouts from 4 Humpbacks, but got to see two of them just 200 yards away. We also found ourselves the object of attention for a pod of Spinner Dolphins who surrounded us for more than 15 minutes.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: An average size adult Humpback has 2 oval shaped blowholes that measure about 9 inches in diameter (on the bigger part of the oval). The whales use them like you use your nostrils, exhaling through both before inhaling. If an average size human had nostril openings in the same proportion to his size as a whale’s blowholes are to the whale’s body size, each human nostril would measure about an inch and a quarter in diameter. Go ahead…we’ll wait while you measure yours!