Breaching Towards Us!
Aloha,
The trade winds were blowing for our Wednesday Wake up with the Whales Cruise making maneuvering to all the different Humpbacks we were seeing a bit more challenging. But Captain Ikaika still managed to get us in range to get good views of 2 different Mom/Calf pods (one of those pods also included an Escort). We also got to see spouts from at least 10 other adult Humpbacks in our area. Some of us got to see a breach (and the rest of us got to see the splash), and we also got a few good views of different Humpbacks’ flukes as they sounded all around us.
On our Mid-Morning Cruise from Kawaihae, we watched a couple of different pods of adult whales who would surface briefly, and then dive for quite awhile (maybe singing while they were underwater). We also found a Mom/Baby pod who were quite interested in us. They swung by the boat 2 different times to investigate us.
Meanwhile, we departed on our Snorkel and Whale Watch Adventure from Anaeho’omalu Bay. We still had quite a bit of wind when we left the mooring, so we decided to do our whale watching after we finished snorkeling, and that turned out to be a great decision. On our trip back to the bay, we saw at least 7 different Humpbacks including a very active calf. This little guy breached and tail lobbed too many times to keep count. Not to be outdone, his Mom breached just about 100 yards off of our port side, and she tail lobbed too. We also saw quite a bit of splashing from several other whales on the surface in various directions — we’re thinking some of it could have been from peduncle throws, and some from tail lobs, but none of us got to see the actual behaviors…just the splashes.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: Humpback whales can’t cry — they don’t have tear ducts (they don’t need them — their eyes are always bathed in salt water) but they do have glands on their outer corneas which secrete an oily substance that helps to protect their eyes from debris in the ocean.