Calf Makes a Splash

December 28, 2023

Aloha,

Guests joining us on our Wednesday Mid-Morning Whale Watch Cruise from Kawaihae Harbor got to meet a Humpback calf.

Though we aren’t entirely sure, we’re guessing that this is the same calf we’ve seen off and on during our Kawaihae cruises for the past week or so. Every time we see this calf, he appears to be just a bit bigger than the time before, and a bit more energetic too. Case in point — today he surprised us all when he breached just outside of the harbor!

We don’t like to bother Moms and calves so after we watched the two of them spout and dive a few times, we headed out to see some other spouting whales. Over the course of the cruise we saw at least 4 other adult Humpbacks spouting and lifting their huge flukes into the air before diving.

Mahalo,

Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: At birth, a Humpback whale calf weighs between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds which makes us think, “Poor Mom — that’s gotta hurt”! But the calf actually weighs somewhere between just 3% and 4% of his Mom’s weight. Interestingly, at birth, human babies are proportionally larger, averaging 4%-5% of their Mom’s weight.