Surge at the Beach Hut on the morning of 12/31.
Aloha,
When we arrived at the beach to get the boat ready for our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on Tuesday, the surf was up! Waves were breaking across the mouth of the bay, and the swell combined with high tides, created surges that reached all the way up to our beach hut. We knew it wouldn’t be safe for our guests to try to board the Glass Bottom Boat on the shoreline for the quick ride out to our catamarans, so we cancelled the cruise.
When we got up to Kawaihae to set up for our 9:30 Mid-Morning Cruise, the surf at the harbor was creating unsafe conditions for boarding on the finger pier too, so we also cancelled that cruise.
We hope the whales enjoyed their last day on the Kohala Coast this decade. Often, when the surf is up, we find the whales have moved further from shore, and we suppose the same thing happened on Tuesday. Surf is forecast to begin diminishing on Tuesday night, so hopefully we’ll be back on the water on Wednesday.
Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: This may be merely anecdotal, but over the decades we’ve been watching the humpbacks, we’ve noticed that when the swells begin to roll in to our side of the island, the whales seem to move further out to sea. Do Humpbacks feel the increased water movement close to shore and head to deeper water (which would account for our observations)? I’ve never come across any research conducted around this question. Hopefully, our researcher friends who read this post can point me in the right direction — and rest assured, I’ll be sure to let you know if what we think we’re observing has actually been substantiated in the literature!