Breach!
Photo courtesy of Dan Hirstein
Aloha,
We found Humpbacks on both of our Whale Watch Cruises on Monday, but on each, we needed to practice some patience. The wind was blowing, so it took us longer to get the boats to the whales — but on each of our morning cruises we got some good, close encounters.
On the Wake up with the Whales Cruise, once we found a pod of 2 humpbacks, they stayed with us for about 30 minutes. Their underwater cycles only lasted about 12 minutes, so we got to see them spout and sound frequently.
On the Signature Whale Watch, the two mature whales we found decided that we were pretty interesting too, as they decided to surface very close to us. It’s always exciting when we can not only see those spouts, but hear those whales breathing too!
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: According to researchers, the sleep process for a Humpback is most likely very similar to how their little toothed cousins, the dolphins, sleep. EEG readings from sleeping bottlenose dolphins show that the dolphins shut down half their brains at a time to rest – a process called “uni-hemispheric slow wave sleep”. Mallard ducks and some species of seals sleep this way too. The active half of the brain presumably is monitoring breathing and perhaps scanning the surroundings for predators, while the passive half is resting. Bottlenose dolphins sleep approximately 33% of the day, but stay asleep for only a couple of hours at a time.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: According to researchers, the sleep process for a Humpback is most likely very similar to how their little toothed cousins, the dolphins, sleep. EEG readings from sleeping bottlenose dolphins show that the dolphins shut down half their brains at a time to rest – a process called “uni-hemispheric slow wave sleep”. Mallard ducks and some species of seals sleep this way too. The active half of the brain presumably is monitoring breathing and perhaps scanning the surroundings for predators, while the passive half is resting. Bottlenose dolphins sleep approximately 33% of the day, but stay asleep for only a couple of hours at a time.