Head Lunge – Image courtesy of Jeff McConnel
Aloha,
It wasn’t too long after leaving the bay on Monday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise before we saw spouts to our north, so of course we took a turn to starboard and headed that way. While we were waiting for our whales to surface, we got a chance to deploy the hydrophone and heard some pretty loud and clear sounds. After listening for awhile, we saw some commotion on the surface ahead of us so Captain Will took us over to get a better look. Turned out, there were 3 whales responsible for the splashes –obviously trying to work something out between each other. While we watched, we saw multiple pec slaps, a couple of head lunges, some unidentifiable surface activities creating more splashes, and get this…SIX breaches! Finally, whatever the issue was, they apparently solved it as one of the whales left the pod. We watched as the other two spouted simultaneously 4 or 5 times before sounding. As it was time for us to head back to the bay, we kept a lookout behind us, and saw the pair surface one last time before we moved out of sight.
We ran our Mid-Morning Whale Watch Cruise out of Anaeho’omalu Bay too, and guests joining us on this cruise saw 8 different Humpbacks. We spent most of our time with a pod of 2 who were traveling up the coastline. They were on 11 minute dive cycles, and at one point, surfaced and spouted just 30 yards from our idling boat. Though these two were diving and surfacing together, only one of them showed his flukes when diving each time….the other one just kind of disappeared from sight.
On our Snorkel & Whale Watch Adventure Cruise, we were able to watch whales on the way to the snorkel site and on the way back, including one whale who just kind of popped up at our 5:00 as were pulling up to our snorkel mooring. After snorkeling, most of us were looking in the right direction to see a whale breach at our 12:00 about 150 yards out, and then all of us got to see some great competitive surface action. We saw lots of pec slaps, a couple of peduncle throws, and even some head lunges. Most interesting to us was watching one whale kind of motorboat through the water with most of his head in the air.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: When we watch a competitive pod of whales who are active on the surface, we assume it is comprised of one female either leading or being chased by a group of males. It often appears that every male is competing with every other male for access to the female. Recently researchers have observed that male humpbacks may form coalitions, working together to corral the female so that one may have easier access to her.