Breach! Image courtesy of Annie Thurgood
Aloha,
As we headed out of the bay on Wednesday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise we took a turn to the north. We saw a few spouts here and there, but as we approached the Mauna Lani Resort, the wind filled in. So, after charging through the wind for a few minutes, Captain Will decided to turn back downwind. Lo and behold, about a minute after that turn, our head naturalist Greg saw a breach behind the boat. As we watched, this whale breached again, and Captain Will made the decision to turn back into the wind to see if we could get closer to the whale. This turned out to be a great choice, because even though it was a bumpy ride, we got to see our sub-adult Humpback breach another 15 or 16 times (so many times, in fact, that we actually lost count).
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: The order of whales is called “Cetacean”. The order is divided into two sub-orders, based on what’s in the whales’ mouths. Whales with baleen are in the sub-order “Mysticete”, and whales with teeth are in the sub-order “Odonotocete”. Researchers do not agree on the number of species in each sub-order, but the Society for Marine Mammalogy lists 14 species of Baleen Whales, and 72 species of Toothed Whales.