Aloha,
We were accompanied for most of Thursday’s 10:00 Whale Watch by two Humpbacks…a Mom and her calf. Both of them were pretty big — that calf was definitely not a newborn. Baby stayed on the surface a lot, so we got some great views of him. And though Momma wasn’t on the surface with him the entire time, she did come up to breathe fairly regularly (every 10 minutes or so). It looked to us that the little guy wanted to investigate the boat as both of them approached within about 25 yards from our bow on several occasions.
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: Starting out as a way to pass time between whale sightings and hunts on the whaling ships in the mid 18th century, “scrimshawing” (or the art of carving intricate designs on to whale teeth, bones and baleen) survived until the ban on commercial whaling went into effect. The etched designs were originally produced by sailors using sailing needles, and were colored with candle soot and tobacco juice to bring the designs into view. Today, hobbyists still create scrimshaw — but they use bones and tusks from non-endangered and non-protected animal species like camels, buffalo and even warthogs.