Height of the Season Stuff

February 21. 2024

Aloha,

You can sure tell it’s the height of the Whale Watch season here in Hawaii! We saw so many Humpbacks during Tuesday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise that we couldn’t keep count. Though most of the 3 dozen or so whales in our vicinity were surfacing, spouting and diving again, we got to see several breaches all around us. The closest breach happened about 100 yards behind the boat, and most of us were looking in the right direction to see it. This whale was probably 50′ long, so as he launched himself out of the water, it seemed to take forever, and when he landed, he created a HUGE splash. We also saw 7 different Mom/Calf pods, and three of those pods were escorted by a male whale. We were approached several times by curious Humpbacks too — and when we deployed our hydrophone, we got to listen to a lot of other whales in our area who hadn’t showed themselves to us.

Mahalo,

Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day:  Researchers off the coast of Brazil have discovered that some marine mammals including Humpbacks may have up to 14 spleens. Among other functions, the spleen stores red blood cells (which store oxygen)…so an extra spleen may help a deep diving animal stay underwater longer. These spleens can contract during a dive releasing fresh blood with oxygenated red blood cells to keep the whale’s important organs alive and functioning. 14 spleens?! Amazing!