Sounding. Photo courtesy of Dan De La Matter
Aloha,
We operated a whole bunch of cruises this past weekend — here are some of the highlights:
- The seas were completely calm and flat for Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise, and we got to see 5 different Humpbacks. Since we weren’t battling the weather, we put the boat in idle and just floated as a couple of those whales swam over to check us out.
- On Friday’s Whales & Cocktails at Sunset Cruise a few of us saw a big tail, followed by a very small ripple in the water. Were we looking at our first Mom/calf pair of the season? We really don’t know as neither whale surfaced again anywhere that we could see.
- Guests on Saturday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise saw 5 different Humpbacks, but we spent most of our time with a competitive pod of 3 who surrounded us close by for most of the cruise.
- On Saturday’s Private Snorkel Cruise, we were paralleling a pod of two Humpbacks who were traveling at a fairly good clip up the coast, when out of nowhere, a different pod of 3 Humpbacks surfaced at our stern. These were BIG whales…and as they swam up our starboard side, one of them did a weird kind of twisty thing as he sounded. These 3 kept up their interactions, surfacing seemingly randomly and fairly often — we’re pretty sure the real action going on between them was happening underwater.
- Finally, the winds were howling up in Kawaihae for Sunday’s Mid-Morning Whale Watch…so we moved the trip down to depart from Anaeho’omalu Bay on Manu Iwa (sometimes it pays off being a “3-boat company!”). Guests joining us on this cruise got to see a pair of Humpbacks who were in a surface/spout twice/sound pattern. Their bottom times weren’t very long, so we got 6 different views of these two whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: A fully grown Humpback Whale can hold his or her breath for around 45 minutes. Usually, that’s not what we observe in Hawaii though. We’re more likely to witness 10-20 minute breath hold dives, and if the whale is really active, s/he surfaces to breathe a lot more frequently.