Peduncle Throw
Aloha,
We spent part of our morning on Thursday’s Mid-Morning Whale Watch Cruise with Momma Humpback and her young calf. The baby was in resting mode, and we actually got to see him laying on Mom’s rostrum (her big head). The two of them were accompanied by an escort (not “Dad”, unless it was a very weird coincidence — Dad was last year’s love interest — for more on this, see today’s Fact of the Day). Anyway, it appeared that Mom didn’t want the attention of the Escort as she kept trying to swim in opposite directions from him. She even aimed a couple of peduncle throws his way! Eventually, we had to leave our pod and head back to the harbor. On the way back we saw several other pods of Humpbacks at the surface including one large lone whale who surfaced several times very close by.
Guests on Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise got to see 5 different Humpbacks. We spent most of our time with a pod of two whales who wanted to spend most of their time with us. These two surfaced several different times just about 80 yards from our idling boat. We all got to hear the sounds made from that forceful spout, and got good views of their dorsal fins. We even got to see their flukes a few times as they sounded nearby.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: We frequently see Mom and Baby Humpback accompanied by a third whale. We used to think this was a female helping mom take care of her baby, but now that we can identify gender more easily, we know it isn’t. It’s a male. Though a new mom ovulates infrequently, researchers believe that perhaps the male whale is “hoping to make a good impression” so when she is receptive, he may be the first to mate with her. Unless it’s a very strange coincidence, this escort is not the father of the calf as male Humpbacks aren’t involved in raising their own offspring.