Humpback Spy Hops on our 1/30 cruise. Image courtesy of crew member extraordinaire Moani
Monday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise was an epic adventure. We had just left the mouth of the bay when we saw a Humpback breach 15 times offshore of the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort, so of course we headed that way.
On the way over there (which took about 5 minutes) we saw spouts and flukes and dorsal fins in literally every direction we looked. In fact for the entire 90 minutes we were at sea, there wasn’t a single whale-less moment.
We got to see a double breach about 400 yards from us and we got to watch a Mom and calf playing around on the surface. Baby breached just about 50 yards from us and they both hung out for awhile just 20 yards off our bow.
Towards the end of the cruise, we were approached by two very big Humpbacks who decided we were worth investigating. They swam around and under us for awhile, and one of them even spy-hopped, clearly taking a look at us.
Our on-board naturalist Kai was speechless but managed to exclaim that this was the best Whale Watch Cruise he had ever been aboard. Of course, he’s only been doing this for a couple of years, but we got confirmation from Captain Will (who’s been doing this stuff for going on 50 years) that this trip was completely epic.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: Spy hopping is one of the ways a Humpback can see what’s going on above the surface of the water. Because Humpbacks have really big heads proportionally, their eyes are about a third of the way down their bodies. When the whale spy hops, she rises slowly and vertically from the water, head first. If she’s a fully grown whale, the tip of her rostrum may be 15 feet above the surface before her eyes get there!