Baby Acts Like, Well, a Baby

Aloha,

Tuesdays are Kawaihae days for us. Guests on our Wake Up With the Whales Cruise spent some time with a Mom/Baby pod about a mile northwest of the harbor. While we watched, these two were approached by a couple of males — and we got to witness the beginnings of a competitive pod. We saw some jostling around at the surface but no other surface behaviors from them. We also saw a whale that one of our guests recognized from a sighting in Washington who she called “Lefty” due to the fact that he’s missing part of the left lobe of his fluke. If I can get a photo, I’ll definitely post it — and we encouraged this guest to share her sighting with HappyWhale.com. When we deployed the hydrophone during this trip, we heard some very loud vocalizations from some near-by whales (probably the mom and calf we were watching).

We found a Mom/Calf pod on our Late Morning Whale Watch Cruise — maybe the same two we had been watching earlier. This time, they were accompanied by an escort. We spent most of the cruise hanging out with them and they seemed content to hang out with us too. Baby was being, well, a baby, and we saw quite a bit of him on the surface. After awhile, Mom seemed to realize that her baby was interested in us, and she let him approach several times close by.

Mahalo,

Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: The smooth round flat spot we see on the water after a whale dives is called the “footprint” (see the photo above). Whalers thought it was caused by oil from the whale’s skin calming the surface of the water, but water samples have proven that theory to be false. When a whale dives (or kicks just below the surface) his flukes break the surface tension of the water and create a vertical wake, forming the circular footprint.