Humpbacks Don’t Care

Humpback Whale Sightings and Statistics|January 9, 2023

Mom and Calf – Image Courtesy of Paul Norris

Aloha,

Last week Wednesday, I mentioned that we were about to begin a slew of Private Cruises, so I wouldn’t be able to send my daily update. Well, it turns out that the whales don’t care whether we call a trip a “Whale Watch” or we call it an “Exclusive Cruise” — they still made their presence known all weekend long. Here are a few highlights from the last several days:

During Thursday’s morning cruise, we saw quite a few Humpbacks, including two different Mom/Calf pods. We didn’t have to travel far between sightings, as the Humpbacks seemed to have found their “happy place” offshore of the Mauna Lani Resort.

Guests joining us for Friday’s first morning cruise spent at least 30 minutes with a Mom and her very young calf. Baby had a bent over dorsal fin, was substantially lighter in color than his Momma, and was extremely small, so we’re guessing he hadn’t been out of the womb for too many days. Momma let him venture within 30 yards of our idling boat.

We found the same Momma/Baby duo on our second cruise on Friday. This time, the two of them were heading south so we paralleled them for awhile. Apparently the baby had slaked his curiosity after his earlier encounter with us, because he didn’t make any close approaches to us.

On Saturday’s first morning cruise we got to see two separate pods of two Humpabcks just northwest of the Bay. While we were waiting to see if these two pods were going to interact with each other, an entirely different group of 4 Humpbacks took a swing by our boat. They were all on 10 minute dive cycles, so we got a couple of glimpses of them as they first separated, and then rejoined. But we ran out of time so we didn’t get to stay with them to find out whether that second coalescence led to any competition.
Mahalo,
Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales (and, in fact, all Baleen Whales) demonstrate something called “reverse sexual size dimorphism”. This means that an adult female Humpback is larger than an adult male (by about 5%). Though researchers are not sure of the exact reason for the difference in size, they theorize that the increased size allows the female to store more reserves to feed and care for her calf, and also to give birth to a bigger calf who might have a better chance of survival than a smaller one. Average length for a fully grown female Humpback is around 45 – 50 feet. At her heaviest, she weighs 35 – 40 tons.