Click on the picture to see what it’s like to be mugged by Humpbacks!
Aloha,
Hope your holiday weekend was as fun as ours! Guests celebrating Kalikimaka morning with us spent some quality time with a pair of very calm Humpbacks. Since the whales were so quiet, we were able to turn off our engines and drift, and a couple of times were surprised when this duo surfaced just over 100 yards away. At that distance, we can hear them exhale AND inhale, and it always gives us chicken skin (a.k.a. “goose-bumps”) to listen to them breathe. When we deployed the hydrophone we heard some very loud and clear singing, so we know there were several Humpbacks nearby who we didn’t get to see.
Saturday’s Mid-Morning Whale Watch Cruise began with sightings of 3 whales straight outside the bay so we headed that way. As we got closer to them, we realized that two of them were obviously hanging out together (maybe a Mom and last year’s calf), and then one of these two surprised us all with a breach. Since we weren’t seeing much else in our vicinity, we decided to hang around in the area, and boy was that a good decision. Our duo got very interested in us, and “mugged” us, swimming all around and under the boat for more than 30 minutes. Wonder what that’s like??? Click on the picture!
On Sunday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise, we got glimpses of a couple different pods of two whales spouting on the surface and one lone whale doing the same thing. Our closest encounter was with a pair of Humpbacks who surprised us by surfacing just about 75 yards away before spouting and sounding. They must have liked the shade created by our boat, because they dove right underneath us. We couldn’t actually see them under the boat, so how did we know? A glimpse at our depth finder proved they were right below us!
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: When a Humpback spouts, he’s exhaling in a half of a second, 90% of the volume of air in his lungs. It’s enough air in one blow to fill up the interior of a stretch limousine. In case you’re curious, when an average size human adult exhales, he takes 3 times as long to exhale just 15% of the volume of air in his lungs — and an adult human exhalation wouldn’t even fill up a Smart Car — it’s only enough air to fill up a lunch bag.