Launch Time!
Aloha,
What a day it was for Whale Watching on Thursday! Guests on our Wake up with the Whales Cruise had one of those one-of-a-kind type cruises. We were watching whales before we even left the mooring, and spent the first part of the cruise with Mom and Baby. Baby did some little breaches and pectoral slaps, and also dove under Mom several times to nurse (we have some drone footage that clearly shows nursing posture)! Later we watched a competitive pod of 5 crashing around on the surface, but we also saw a lot of other breaching, head lunging, pec slapping and tail lobbing from whales all around us.
Guests on our Signature Whale Watch Cruise also got to spend time with Mom and Baby, but this pod was accompanied by an escort. We watched baby breach more than 35 times, and he pec slapped too. We also got to witness a simultaneous breach from Mom and the Escort. We saw so many other breaching whales that we lost count.
We dropped the folks off from this cruise, and went out again with a group from the Waikoloa Seniors Club. This time we saw Mom and Baby again, and this time baby breached 6 times about 100 yards from us, followed by a breach from Mom. Later in the cruise we watched 2 big Humpbacks breach simultaneously about 200 yards from the boat. Of course we didn’t move, and as we watched, they came within 100 yards of us, still breaching for a total of 25 breaches. Breathtaking!
And the day ended just as good as it began, with breaching whales everywhere during our Sail with the Whales Cruise. Besides the competitive pod of three who were breaching, head lunging and peduncle throwing right next to the boat, there were other whales breaching in just about every direction the entire 2 hours we were at sea.
We’re not entirely sure just what got into those whales today, but they sure made sure that everyone — whether Humpback or Human — knew that it’s whale season in Hawaii!
Have a wonderful weekend. I’ll send a recap of our weekend sightings out on Monday
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales have the longest Pectoral Flippers (arms) of any of the great whales. They’re so distinctive that the Latin Genus name for the Humpback actually describes those flippers…The Genus and Species names are “Megaptera Novaengliae” meaning “Big-Winged New Englander”(they were named for the Humpbacks living off the east coast of the US).