Sounding – courtesy of Bob from Tennessee
Most Monday mornings I have a lot of cruises to recap. But since the last time I posted, we only operated one Whale Watch Cruise (you can blame the strong winds for that).
On Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay we started seeing Humpbacks before we even left the bay. With so many whales in so many directions to choose to look at, we didn’t know where to aim the boat (our favorite dilemma). We finally decided to spend some time watching a Mom/Calf pair. These two were surfacing, swimming and diving quite calmly until an Escort showed up. Now since Humpbacks can hold their breath 30 – 45 minutes at a time, it’s possible that he was hanging around beneath Momma and the calf the whole time we were watching them and we didn’t witness his actual approach. But we know for sure that we did get to witness the approach of two “wanna-be” escorts. Once they arrived on the scene things got very exciting. We got to see multiple breaches from these adult whales and it just didn’t stop. In fact at one point, 3 of the Humpbacks were out of the water and in the air at the same time. As close as all these whales were to each other, we couldn’t be sure if we were watching Mom and two of the males breaching…or if we were watching all three males breaching while Mom attempted to keep her little one out of the fray. Most likely, it was a little of both. Female Humpbacks are no slouches when it comes to announcing their presence, their excitement, their irritation and even their protective capabilities.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: We frequently see Mom and Baby Humpback accompanied by a third whale (or in the case of Friday’s cruise, a fourth and fifth whale too). We used to think these accompanying whales were female, and they were there to help mom take care of her baby, but now that we can identify gender more easily, we know that female Humpbacks don’t interact while in Hawaii, so these “extra” Humpbacks are males. Though a new mom ovulates infrequently, researchers believe that perhaps the accompanying male whales are “hoping to make a good impression” so when she is receptive, one of them may be the first to mate with her. Unless it’s a very strange coincidence, these males are not the father of the calf, as male Humpbacks aren’t involved in raising their own offspring. Since the gestation period for a Humpback is about a year, “Dad” was last year’s love interest.