At Least Someone Was Enthusiastic
Aloha,
Whoo-boy…the surf came up BIG time for us on the west coast of the island. The biggest waves rolled through on Friday (causing us to cancel our cruises because we couldn’t get anyone from the beach to the boat safely). By Saturday, the swell had diminished a bit, but there was definitely some motion on the ocean.
Guests on Saturday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise from Kawaihae Harbor got a chance to see a pod of Spinner Dolphins and spouts from a half dozen different Humpbacks. Most of these whales were several hundred yards (or more) away from us. We also saw lots of peduncle arches (the curved part of the whale’s back that shows when he sounds) and some big flukes too from sounding whales. When we deployed the hydrophone we heard some singing from a couple of whales. Their voices were distinct, but not extremely loud, so we knew they were at least a mile away from us.
A juvenile Humpback met us at the mouth of the harbor as we departed for our Late Morning Whale Watch Cruise. While we were watching this whale, we saw another pod of 2 Humpbacks about 400 yards away. These 2 approached us, and we got some good views of them before we turned towards a competitive pod heading our way. This pod was extremely active on the surface — we watched one of the whales breach about 15 times (including a full breach that happened just about 40 yards from our idling boat). We watched the pod for a good hour and got to see at least 20 tail lobs, 15 pectoral slaps and a half dozen head lunges. The whale leading the group was much bigger than the others, so we guessed we were watching a group of smaller males chasing a rather unenthused female (though our enthusiasm definitely made up for her lack of any). We paralleled their travel about a mile and half as they headed north before we eventually had to turn back to return to the dock.
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.