Selfie with a Fluke
Image Courtesy of Seregei C
Aloha,
What a weekend we had!
Guests on Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise spotted a whale as we were departing the bay, just to our south. We headed over to where we thought he’d surface, but 10 minutes later, were surprised when he surfaced in an entirely different place. So, we moved the boat and tried again, only to be surprised when he surfaced in yet a different place. After that we found a pod of two adult humpbacks who were a little more predictable, surfacing and spouting every 5 minutes or so while we watched them. On the way back into the bay, we found a few very sleepy spinner dolphins. They mustered up just enough energy to take a look at us…but we left them alone so they could get their much needed rest.
We were mugged for almost our entire Signature Whale Watch Cruise on Friday by a pair of very curious adult Humpbacks. These two popped up all around us, over and over again. Besides those close encounters, one of them head lunged just about 50 yards from us, and we got to see a breach from one of them about 70 yards from us.
We ran a couple of cruises from Anaeho’omalu Bay on Saturday. Guests on our Wake up with the Whales Cruise watched a pod of two adult Humpbacks spouting at the surface AND a pod of Spinner Dolphins. Guests on our Private Snorkel Cruise on Manu Iwa got to watch the same two whales for awhile too (the Seasmoke crew told us where to find them).
Meanwhile, guests on our Signature Whale Watch Cruise spent some time with a fairly calm Mom and calf, followed by a lone Humpback. On our Whales and Cocktails at Sunset Cruise, we’re pretty sure we found that same Mom and calf again (same sizes/same activity level). Later we found a different Mom and calf who were doing synchronized peduncle throws! After they finished with that activity, baby breached, and then Mom surprised us with a BIG breach.
Finally, on Sunday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise we saw a pair of Humpbacks just north of the bay. It appeared to us that these two had an appointment they had to keep somewhere up the coast, as they were traveling at a fairly good clip, and surfacing, spouting, and sounding fairly frequently. They paralleled us all the way to Puako, at one point surfacing just about 50 yards away from us, before we had to say “Aloha” and turn the boat around to head back to the bay.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: The first whales to leave Hawaii each year are mature females (who are either newly pregnant, or taking time off between pregnancies), followed by sub adult whales, and then, mature males. The last to leave are new mothers with their calves.