Spouting – Image courtesy of Hanif Barnwell
Aloha,
We had a great weekend of Whale Watching…so let’s get right to it!
- Guests on Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise got to watch 2 stages of the Humpback reproductive cycle (at least that’s what we think we were watching). We spent time with a competitive pod of at least 4 whales which quickly became a competitive pod of 3. We saw lots of charging around on the surface, and heard lots of very loud trumpeting from them — they even came within about 30 yards from us. Later in the cruise we encountered Mom, her baby and an escort. We were all looking in the right direction to see the baby do a little half-breach right next to Mom.
- Guests joining us on Friday’s Snorkel & Whale Watch Adventure Cruise got to see whales on the way to the snorkel site, while at the snorkel site, and on the way back from the snorkel site! The most exciting sightings happened while we were on our mooring during the snorkel portion of the day — we watched 2 whales breaching and tail lobbing repetitively just about 150 yards from the boat!
- On Friday’s Whales & Cocktails at Sunset Cruise, we spent considerable time in idle watching a Mom/Calf/Escort pod. We couldn’t believe it when seemingly out of nowhere, one of those big adults breached RIGHT next to the boat. If you want to see what that looked like, be sure to check out our March Newsletter (we’ll email it on March 1st — if you’re not on the distribution list, you can subscribe here).
- Guests on Saturday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise saw lots of different Humpbacks spouting, but not a whole lot of flukes. We spent considerable time watching a breaching whale (no one kept an accurate count, but we’re estimating at least 10 breaches from this guy). After he exhausted himself breaching, he started tail lobbing…and tail lobbing…and tail lobbing.
- We saw Humpbacks all throughout Saturday’s Snorkel & Whale Watch Adventure Cruise, including one who surfaced just about 40 yards from us on the way to the snorkel site, and another who breached at least 8 times about 500 yards from us when we were on the mooring, Guests who were able to keep their heads under the surface got a real treat, as the singing from whales nearby sounded like a symphony!
- Sunday turned out to be a great day for whale watching too. Guests on our Wake up with the Whales Cruise got to know a Mom/Baby/Escort pod on one side of the boat, and also saw a full breach from a different whale on the opposite side of the boat. Guests on our Mid-Morning Cruise had a couple of great views of whales who surfaced and sounded close by. Also, we all happened to be looking in the right direction to see a smaller whale (about 35 feet long) breach only about 30 yards from us at our 9:00. A lot of us waited with cameras ready to see if he’d do it again, and about 30 seconds after we gave up on that dream, sure enough, he did breach again — this time about 45 yards from us! Our final cruise of the day was a Whale Watch Fundraiser for the West Hawaii Mediation Center. We started that cruise surrounded by 3 different pods of two who were taking turns surfacing and spouting. Right after we left them, we were surprised by a huge splash at our stern when a Humpback who we didn’t even know was there breached. Later in the cruise we saw more breaches further away…and at the end of the cruise, a pod of Spinner Dolphins found us…most of them were pretty quiet though we did see a few complete spins from a couple of them at our 12:00.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: Being mammals, Humpbacks have belly buttons – in case you’re wondering, they’re “innies”.