Calf Breaches
Aloha,
We operated lots of cruises the past couple of days, so here are a few highlights.
On Friday’s Signature Whale Watch, the ocean was pretty quiet, but we did see two different Humpbacks. Each was alone, and each appeared to be a sub-adult. We got to watch each of them spout before they sank under the water.
On Friday’s Snorkel and Whale Watch Adventure Cruise, we were completely surprised when a Humpback surfaced just 10 yards from us, spouted, and sounded. We waited around for awhile to see if he’d reappear, and though he didn’t, we did see a few other spouts out in front of us. After snorkeling, some of us got to see a Humpback breach about 100 yards off our 9:00…but as is often the case, not all of us were looking in the right direction during the breach, so some of us just got to see the splash.
We saw a Humpback on Saturday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise before we even left the mooring, but we spent most of our time with a Mom/Calf/Escort trio who were traveling north at a pretty good clip. This trio was spending most of their time on the surface, and we saw peduncle throws and lots of jockeying for position as they swam. We even got to see baby breach, and then later, one of the adults breached just about 75 yards from us…followed by a breach at our 1:00 about 300 yards from us from another whale who we didn’t even know was there.
After this Whale Watch Cruise, new guests came aboard and we headed out for our Snorkel & Whale Watch Adventure Cruise. On the way to our snorkel site, we saw a Mom/Baby/Escort pod splashing around on the surface (could be the same trio we had watched earlier — they were in the same general area). On our way back to the bay after snorkeling, we were joined by a pod of two humpbacks who came right up to the boat. One of them started pec slapping repetitively — and he was really, really close to us. For awhile, he was lying on his back, and those pec slaps looked like he was doing the back stroke! This whale actually swam under the boat, and spouted under the cabin, coming up on the other side of us. And…to top it off…most of us were looking in the right direction to see one of these whales breach as they headed away from us.
Guests on Saturday’s Signature Whale Watch Cruise were met just outside of the harbor by a big pod of very active Spinner Dolphins. After giving them the opportunity to surf our bow wake and play in our stern wake, we headed out to sea to see a lone Humpback. We watched him spout and sound before heading inshore, where we found Mom, her baby, and an escort. Mom was attempting to take a nap (we call that “logging”), but baby did his best to get her to play with him, peduncle throwing 4 times while we watched.
We were met with a quiet ocean again for Sunday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise, but we did find a solo Humpback who decided to surface every 12 minutes, so we saw a lot of him. He had beautiful white patterns on his flukes (which we also saw a lot of) and at one point, we actually watched him roll over onto his back just under the surface, flashing those intense turquoise reflections at us.
Finally, on our Sunday Signature Whale Watch Cruise guests saw 7 different Humpbacks, including one pod of Mom/Baby/ Escort. The other two pods were composed of 2 adult Humpbacks…and we got to watch all of these whales surface, spout, and sound.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: An adult Humpback’s bladder can hold about 5 gallons of liquid.