Check out that Pectoral Flipper!
Aloha,
We had a weekend of Whale Season firsts! On Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise we got to watch a pod of two whales spout, surface, and slip under the water several times before we lost them. On our way back to the bay towards the end of the cruise, we saw those same too whales again, and this time, one of them breached completely out of the water just 50 yards from the boat. The best part is that we were ALL looking in the right direction when we breached, so we ALL got to witness the magic. Our first complete breach of the season!
On Saturday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise, we also got to watch a whale spout and sound. While we were waiting for him to surface again, we deployed our hydrophone and the sounds were very, very loud and clear. We confirmed that the whale we had seen spout was the singer when the singing stopped, and the whale surfaced right where we had seen him dive. We also saw our first tail lobs of the year during this cruise…and during the Snorkel Cruise we got to see our first pec slaps of the year.
On Saturday’s Private Snorkel Cruise we got to see a whale up close two different times…once when he surprised us at our port bow, just about 20 yards from us and a little later at our starboard stern about 30 yards away.
Finally, on Sunday’s Mid-Morning Cruise, the winds were blowing hard. We headed from the Harbor down towards the Mauna Lani area (because that’s where we had been seeing the whales the last couple of days). Unfortunately, the Humpbacks were hiding, so we called the trip a “Fluke” and invited everyone aboard to join us again for another Whale Watch Cruise for FREE!
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: Why do we love to see a Humpback wave his pectoral flipper in the air? Well, in the case of the Humpback it’s one of the most distinguishing morphological (body) characteristics of the genus. Our Humpbacks have extremely long pectoral flippers averaging 1/3rd the length of their bodies (approx. 15 feet). It’s so distinguishing that the genus name for the Humpback (Megaptera) actually describes this flipper – the translation from Latin for Megaptera is “Big – Winged”.