Hammerhead Shark visits Alala
We operated FIVE different Exclusive Cruises on Thursday, so we saw way too much for me to expect you to read in a single update.
Some of the highlights included a very tiny calf diving around his momma, a couple of double breaches about 200 yards from the boat which almost everyone aboard got to see, some very competitive pods of 4 and 5 whales who head-lunged, pec-slapped, and charged at each other while pretty much ignoring our boat (they got close to us but never rammed into us or anything, so we guessed they weren’t totally ignoring us), a couple of whales who swam right under our boat, checking us out…and a HAMMERHEAD SHARK who hung with Alala just outside of Kawaihae Harbor (see the photo above).
Our 2nd trip on Seasmoke was kind of strange. Just as we left the bay we were seeing spouts and dorsal fins from at least 20 different whales. We watched a Mom/Calf/Escort for awhile, and then headed towarded a breacher. As we arrived in the area, this whale ducked under the water…and then all the action died. We scanned in every direction and didn’t see anything for probably 40 more minutes. But during the last 20 minutes of the trip, the whales “woke up” again. We saw some breaches, some pec slaps and lots of spouts and flukes. All that activity on the surface, followed by no activity on the surface, followed by a return to activity on the surface really made us wonder…were the Humpbacks in our area actually in sync with each other, or was it a weird coincidence?
Have a great weekend — I’ll send out the next update on Monday.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: Ok, so today’s shark was easy to identify but do you know the easiest way to distinguish whether that big creature swimming rapidly towards you is a whale or a shark? Watch the way it swims…whales propel themselves through the water by moving their tails up and down vertically. Sharks and other fish move their tails from side to side. Aristotle was the first person to document this difference around 350 B.C. – hopefully you’ll never need to use this information for anything other than winning a trivia contest!