Aloha,
Guests joining us on Monday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise got to see more than 40 minutes of aggressive interaction between three whales that were obviously trying to work something out between themselves. We watched as they charged by us a multitude of times, trumpeting, twisting and kind of half diving below the surface. We saw lots of head lunges, and some pec slaps too…but just watching them charge around right next to each other, oblivious to our presence, was really exciting. At one point, we thought a 4th whale was going to join the fray. We saw him approaching the pod for awhile, but then he disappeared from our sight (maybe he knew something about those three that we didn’t know). After the competition started to slow down, we headed towards some splashing we saw a bit further out to sea. The splashes turned out to be from a Humpback who did at least 10 peduncle throws as we watched.
The wind came up during our Snorkel and Whale Watch Adventure Cruise, making viewing a bit more challenging. But while most of us were in the water, a mom and calf decided it would be a good thing to hang out about 150 yards from the boat. Those of us snorkeling at the time didn’t get to see them, but the people who had returned to the boat got to watch these two spouting and floating at the surface for quite a long time.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Yesterday, I promised I’d discuss how well a Humpback can see through her big brown eyes.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. Humpbacks have fewer cones and more rods in their eyes than we do, which means they wouldn’t perceive color to the same extent as humans do, but they would see better in the dark.