Kinda’ Lazy

Aloha,

We operated a couple of Guaranteed Whale Watch Cruises from Kawaihae Harbor on Saturday. Guests onboard for our 8AM Cruise met up with a Mom/Calf/Escort trio just south of the harbor. At first, the trio kept surfacing a couple hundred yards from us (baby surfaced a lot more frequently than the others). We were happy to see them, but we were even happier when they surprised us by surfacing about 80 yards from our bow before heading away from us. Later in the cruise we encountered a different Mom/Calf/Escort cruise, but these three were on their way to somewhere else (we never determined exactly where) so after watching them for awhile we also headed somewhere else. When we deployed the hydrophone during this cruise we were surprised by how many whales were singing in our area. Oh, and when we scanned the horizon between sightings, we saw some splashes a couple of miles away from big Humpbacks breaching.

On our 10:30 Late Morning Whale Watch Cruise we found our Mom/Calf/Escort pod still lazing around in shallow water south of the harbor. We watched them for awhile but really didn’t want to bother them so we turned the boat and headed north. While we were underway, we saw some breaching to our west, but those whales were too far away to investigate, so we stopped for awhile and deployed our hydrophone. We eavesdropped on one fairly close-by whale and several who were further away. Finally, as we headed back at the end of our cruise we got to watch a pair of adult Humpbacks spout a couple of times and sound right near the entrance of the harbor.

Mahalo,

Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day:  A Humpback Whale doesn’t reach sexual maturity till it’s about 35 feet long (age 5 or 6 for females, and a little bit later for males). Researchers have observed that most Humpbacks in the North Pacific don’t begin calving successfully till they’re at least 10 years old – the mean average is 11.8 years. In the North Atlantic, Humpbacks generally give birth for the first time between ages 5 and 7, reaching sexual maturity earlier too.