Aloha,
On Thursday’s Mid-Morning Whale Watch Cruise from Kawaihae, we spotted our first Humpbacks immediately after exiting the harbor. These two whales were just cruising and neither was particularly big. After watching them for awhile, we encountered another pod of two whales…and then yet another pod of two. All of these Humpbacks were much bigger than our first duo, and again, all 4 of these Humpbacks were just cruising. We also got to see quite a bit of breaching, pec slapping and tail lobbing from whales between 300 yards away and a couple of miles away. From our vantage point, all that activity on the surface appeared to be happening as a “call and response” between the various Humpbacks. Were we correct? See today’s Fact of the Day for more on that.
Have a great weekend. I’ll post our next update on Monday!
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: One of the questions we get asked most frequently when we’re watching active whales splashing at the surface, is “Why are they doing that”? We’ve always guessed those splashes were some form of communication, and recently our theory was vindicated. Researchers watching Humpbacks off of Australia observed that breaching occurred most frequently when other whales were about 2 1/2 miles away, and repetitive tail and flipper slapping occurred most often just before new whales joined or left a pod. They also observed all these behaviors more often when it was windy (we’ve observed this in Hawaii too)! So…creating a big splash may be a Humpback’s way to say “Hey — Guys — I’m over here! C’mon over (or Don’t Go)! I’m excited, I’m tough, I’m irritated…