Aloha,
Guests on Monday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise saw an interesting variety of activities. In the beginning of the cruise, we saw lots of spouts, peduncle arches, and fluke dives. But then, we finally saw some splashing at the surface from about 300 yards away. Turns out it was from two Humpbacks — one was pec slapping, and the other was tail lobbing – and they kept up this activity for more than 4 minutes before they sounded together. We also were accompanied by a lone whale who swam parallel to us about 100 yards away, for more than a minute.
On our 10:00 Cruise, we spent our time watching 5 different Humpbacks. Most of the time, they were spending 10-15 minutes underwater between spouts. We had a close encounter at the end of the cruise when one pod of two surfaced right next to us, and then took a sounding dive, giving us a great view of their flukes.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The smooth round flat spot we see on the water after a whale dives is called the “footprint”. Whalers thought it was caused by oil from the whale’s skin calming the surface of the water, but water samples have proven that theory to be false. When a whale dives (or kicks just below the surface) his flukes break the surface tension of the water and create a vertical wake, forming the circular footprint.