Humpbacks – Mom & Baby
Aloha,
We had a good day of whale watching on Friday…but the rest of the weekend was pretty slow.
We had a lot of wind during Friday’s cruises. Guests on our Wake up with the Whales Cruise got to see at least 3 (but maybe as many as 5) different Humpbacks. 3 of them spent some time fairly close to the boat, staying on or right below the surface for more than 30 seconds at a time, giving all of us some great views. We also got to see a pec slap and a mini head lunge from this pod.
On Friday’s Mid-Morning Cruise we saw our first calf of the season! We encountered Mom and her baby just offshore of Spencer Beach (south of the Harbor). The little guy was expending quite a bit of energy, surfacing in different places every two or three minutes. We had a difficult time keeping track of him, and we had absolutely no idea how his Mom was able to follow his antics. She was a big whale though, so chances are that this wasn’t her “first rodeo”. We got glimpses of Mom every 10 minutes or so as she surfaced to breath. Unfortunately it was too windy during both of our morning cruises to deploy our hydrophones.
There was a small lee north of the harbor during Friday’s Pau Hana Sunset Cruise, so we took advantage of those calm conditions and cruised within it till the sun set. Coincidentally, a Humpback seemed to be enjoying the lee too. We got many glimpses of this whale…but that’s all they were…just glimpses. Each time she surfaced, she spouted once before diving and traveling underwater to an unexpected location (so we never really knew where she’d surface next).
On Saturday, we ran a Wake up with the Whales Cruise and a Snorkel & Whale Watch Adventure Cruise out of Anaeho’omalu Bay, and on Sunday, we ran our Mid-Morning Cruise out of the bay too. Though we looked all over the place during all those cruises, we never did get to see any Humpbacks. Maybe all that wind everywhere around the islands but the few miles around Anaeho’omalu affected the whales’ behaviors. We’ve observed lots of Humpback surface activities when it’s windy…so maybe our whales left our area this past weekend for some fresh air. Regardless of the reason, we guarantee sightings, so all the guests on our morning Whale Watch Cruises have been invited back to join us again for FREE.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: A baby whale, called a “calf” looks so small and cute when seen playing with her Mom. But everything is relative…when the calf is born, she can already be 10 to as much as 15 feet long, and she weighs 2000 to 3000 pounds! The calf is about 26 feet long when it’s weaned (at 10-11 months)