It Was Worth Losing…

January 30, 2024

Aloha,

I had just written that we “started our work week off with a bang” when I began to think that since we operate every day of the week, we never actually have a “start” to our work week. So I deleted that phrase and I’m just going to say that our Monday Whale Watch Cruises were incredibly exciting.

Guests on our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise saw spouts and dorsal fins and flukes from more than 2 dozen different Humpbacks during our 90 minutes at sea. We watched breaches from multiple adult Humpbacks who were all between 100 and 400 yards away. And to top it off, we were the object of curiosity for several Humpbacks who were almost as long as our boat. We tell our guests that it’s one of those once-in-a-life-time experiences when a Humpback chooses to approach the boat and swim right underneath while checking us out (we call that a “mugging”) — however when that then happens several times from different whales during the same cruise like it did this morning, we begin to lose our credibility. But in this case, we’re ok with that hit to our reputation.

The wind came up during our Late Morning Whale Watch, but that seemed to excite the Humpbacks in our “neighborhood”. We saw splashes from breaching Humpbacks all over the place, but one whale in particular put on quite a show. This whale stayed around 125 yards from us, and we got to see him breach multiple times. In between breaches, this whale also tail lobbed and pec slapped over and over and over again. There didn’t seem to be another Humpback accompanying him so we figured he was communicating his mood and his whereabouts to some of the other Humpbacks we were seeing a bit further away.

Mahalo,
Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: The whales “mugging” us are definitely taking a look at us. Though Humpbacks rely on their sense of hearing far more than any other sense, we do know that vision is also important to them. Based on the shape of the Humpbacks’ corneas, they can certainly see us…but, they’re probably a bit farsighted when looking through water and a bit nearsighted when looking through the air. And in case anyone asks you, Humpbacks have beautiful brown eyes. Their eyeballs weigh, on average, 2.16 pounds. Human eyeballs weigh about a quarter of an ounce.