Baby Approaches
Aloha,
Tuesday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise was like visiting the “Daycare of the Sea”. We barely got out of Kawaihae harbor before we were seeing a Mom/calf duo, and throughout the course of that cruise we saw at least 5 more Moms and babies. At least one of these pods was accompanied by an escort, and though the pods never interacted with each other, one of them interacted with us. We got lots of good close up views of an inquisitive calf who ventured over to see us. We also saw spouts further out to sea from other adult humpbacks, and saw at least one breach from a big whale just less than 1/2 a mile from us.
On the way to our snorkel site during our Snorkel & Whale Watch Adventure Cruise, we stopped to see Momma Humpback with her little calf as they swung by to check us out. We also saw lots and lots of spouting just beyond our snorkel site, but we wanted to get some snorkeling in so we didn’t go down there to investigate. On the way back to the harbor after snorkeling, we were just outside of Hapuna Beach when we saw another Mom whale with her calf. We stopped the boat and watched them come closer and closer to us at our 11:00. While we were watching them, a manta ray approached us at our 3:00…so then we had our favorite dilemma…who do we watch?! Everyone on board made their best efforts to watch everything on both sides of the boat, but with all the excitement, we didn’t want to leave the area, and ended up returning to the harbor a bit late.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: We’ve never witnessed a Humpback taking care of two calves. We know she could conceive twins (and whalers occasionally would find twin fetuses) but we doubt she could carry twins to term. And even if she could, we really doubt she could produce the 200 gallons of milk she’d need each day to feed two calves!