Aloha,
Hope you had as fun of a weekend as we did!
We operated our Late-Morning Whale Watch Cruises on both Saturday and Sunday from Kawaihae Harbor and got to see and hear Humpbacks during both cruises.
Guests on Saturday’s Cruise were enchanted by a calf who was playing around at the surface, slapping his flukes and his pectoral flippers. He inspired (or irritated — not sure which) his Mom, because after awhile, she started doing the same thing. We also got to see a lone Humpback on the move…this whale was travelling north, and only surfaced to breathe a few times before sounding. We saw him a few times, but couldn’t keep up with him.
We headed south out of the harbor for Sunday’s Cruise and watched a pair of medium sized Humpbacks spouting and sounding. They were on longish dive cycles, but we did get to see them surface 3 different times — always together, and pretty much in the same spot. While we were waiting for them to surface, we deployed our hydrophone and though we could hear sounds, they were pretty faint indicating there were other Humpbacks further away that we weren’t seeing.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: A Humpback Whale doesn’t reach sexual maturity till it’s about 35 feet long (age 5 or 6 for females, and a little bit later for males). Researchers have observed that most Humpbacks in the North Pacific don’t begin calving successfully till they’re at least 10 years old – the mean average is 11.8 years. In the North Atlantic, Humpbacks generally give birth for the first time between ages 5 and 7, reaching sexual maturity earlier too.