Mahalo to John and Michelle Kallas from Minnetonka MN for sharing this great image of a synchronized dive.
Aloha,
Guests on joining us for Thursday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise got to see a nice mix of marine life. Besides some spouts in the distance, we did get to see one Humpback surface right next to the boat. Interestingly, he surfaced right in the middle of a school of small oi’oi’s that were feeding at the surface. We couldn’t tell if this whale was grabbing a snack…but he sure was in the right place to do so. Also cruising with this school of fish was a Manta Ray, and we got a great view of him at the surface too.
We also operated a Private Snorkel Whale Watch Cruise from the Bay, and guests joining us on this cruise got to see Humpbacks both before and after their time in the water. On the way out of the bay we found a competitive pod and watched them twist and turn around each other on the surface. After snorkeling, we headed out for some more whale watching and this time were totally surprised by a whale who breached about 75 yards off our port side. Of course we stopped the boat immediately, and watched him spout before diving. We weren’t actually sure where he’d surface next, so we waited around..and he surprised us again, spouting just about 15 feet off our stern. We watched him swim under us and surface again at our 2:00, spouting just 25 feet away from us. He spouted a few more times and then sounded.
Have a fantastic weekend. I’ll send out a recap of our weekend’s sightings on Monday.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales have massive tongues. An 80,000 pound Humpback has a two-ton tongue! Taste buds appear to be pretty atrophied…and they are unable to protrude their tongues from their mouths. But interestingly a Humpback can do something that some people can do too: she can curl up the lateral edges of her tongue to form a tube which directs food from her huge mouth directly into to her small diameter esophagus.