Aloha,
We took out two boats for Thursday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise. Guests on Manu Iwa spent considerable time watching two different competitive pods. These whales were all swimming really aggressively, trumpeting and smashing into each other at the surface (and we can only speculate on what was going on underwater…but we bet it was intense). We also got to see Momma Humpback and her baby.
Guests on Seasmoke’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise had to wait almost an hour before the whales woke up. We finally came across a lone humpback who spouted and sounded. While we were waiting for this whale to surface again, we decided to deploy our hydrophone, and we heard some really loud and clear singing. But our lone Humpback decided to stay underwater longer than we wanted to wait, so we finally pulled up the hydrophone and cruised some more.
That was a good decision as we encountered two pods of two whales who, as we watched, merged into one competitive pod of 4 whales. We got to see some head lunging, and lots of twisting and turning from this pod as they charged around on the surface — and some of it was happening just 25 feet off our starboard bow. While we were watching all of this, we saw another pod of two who looked like they were heading towards our foursome. Unfortunately, even though we stayed out an extra half hour, we didn’t have time to see if they were actually all going to join together.
That was a good decision as we encountered two pods of two whales who, as we watched, merged into one competitive pod of 4 whales. We got to see some head lunging, and lots of twisting and turning from this pod as they charged around on the surface — and some of it was happening just 25 feet off our starboard bow. While we were watching all of this, we saw another pod of two who looked like they were heading towards our foursome. Unfortunately, even though we stayed out an extra half hour, we didn’t have time to see if they were actually all going to join together.
The theme for our 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae was BABIES. Though we found a pod of three relatively large whales hanging out together, they were on a 15 minute dive cycle, and when they did surface it was just to spout a couple of times. But we saw several different Mom/Baby pods. Of course the calves were surfacing much more frequently than their moms…and it was fun to get a glimpse of their tiny spouts. On our way back to the harbor we found ourselves surrounded by a large pod of Spinner Dolphins who apparently thought we were worth playing with for awhile.
Have a great weekend…I’ll send out a recap of our sightings on Monday.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Yesterday I explained how Humpbacks can keep their cool in Hawaiian waters…so how do they manage to stay warm when swimming in cold Alaskan waters? Besides their protective layer of blubber, Humpbacks actually have something called a “counter current” circulatory system. Some arteries in their flippers, flukes, and dorsal fin are surrounded by veins. This allows heat from the blood traveling through those arteries to be transferred to the venous blood returning to their hearts, instead of being lost to the environment.