First Cruise of the Season

Humpback Whale Sightings and Statistics|December 15, 2022

Aloha,

Our first cruise of the season was a successful one. We headed south from Kawaihae Harbor on our Mid-Morning Whale Watch Cruise and it wasn’t too long before we saw a splash from what we were sure was a breaching whale off of Puako. It took us awhile to get close enough to see the whale, but when we finally got down to the area offshore of Puako, we realized we were watching a lone Humpback.
This whale was on the smaller side (maybe 30 feet long) and apparently he was done expending excess energy because we never did get to see him breach when we were close by. We did get to see him spout 3 different times. He was on 15 minute dive cycles, so while he was cruising around underwater, we spent our time scanning the horizon for more whales. It’s still pretty early in the season though, so we weren’t surprised that we weren’t finding anyone else out there.

Saying that, we think that getting to see one whale on our very first cruise bodes well for the rest of the season!

Mahalo,

Claire

Whale Fact of the Day: If you’ve been scouring the news for stories about Humpbacks the last week or so, you may have seen an article or two about Moon, the Humpback who migrated over 3000 miles from BC waters to Hawaii using just her pectoral flippers (her “arms”) to swim. Humpbacks generally use the big muscles that move their flukes to propel themselves, but researchers theorize that Moon was struck by a ship which paralyzed her, causing her to rely on this alternate propulsion method. Why she even bothered to make what is surmised to be her final migration is unknown. She’s been spotted off the Kona Coast, and we’re keeping our eyes open for her along our coastline too. We wish you well, Moon!