Intentional Aloha??
Photo courtesy of Brian Reinsisch
I’m happy to report that our crazy winds have finally died down, allowing us to enjoy some great Whale Watching on Friday and again on Saturday.
On Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay, we spent the beginning of the cruise watching lots of whales spouting, and several fluke dives. Those of us looking in the right direction at the right time also saw a couple of breaches, but those were pretty far away. Towards the end of this cruise, we came across a pod of two adult Humpbacks. These two were rolling around each other at the surface. Just as we were about to call it a day and head back into the bay, one of these whales rolled onto his back right below the surface, showing us the underside of his fluke, and then waved his huge Pectoral flipper in our direction. He probably really didn’t intend to give us an Aloha send-off, but we liked to think that’s what he was doing!
On Saturday’s Mid-Morning Cruise from Kawaihae, the first spouts we saw were from a Mom/Calf/Escort trio about a mile straight out of the harbor. The three of them were just kind of relaxing, and though Baby tried to approach us a few times, Mom did her best to veer him away from us. After watching them for awhile, some of us saw a breach behind the boat, so we turned and headed back towards the harbor. The breach was a single event though, and while we were waiting to see if this lone whale would do anything else at the surface, our Mom, Baby and Escort from before surfaced just about 50 yards behind the boat. We knew it was the same 3 because we recognized the patterns on their flukes and also their relative sizes. This time, Mom let her baby stay about 50 yards from us for quite awhile, and we got to see all three of them surface and spout at least 5 different times.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: This time of year, we see a lot of Humpback moms taking care of their calves along our coastline, but we’ve never witnessed a Humpback taking care of two calves. We know she could conceive twins (and whalers occasionally would find twin fetuses) but we doubt she could carry twins to term. And even if she could carry them to term, we really doubt she could produce the 200 gallons of milk she’d need each day to feed two calves!