Overrun
Aloha,
It’s getting to be that time of the season when our coastline is virtually overrun by Humpback calves, which is more than fine with us. On Saturday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise from Kawaihae we got to meet a Mom/Calf/Escort pod who were hanging out just outside of the harbor. All three of them decided to investigate us and surfaced less than 50 yards from our idling boat. Baby must have been a bit excited as he did a little spinny breach-type maneuver. Later in the cruise we saw a breach about a mile from us (too far to investigate though). We also saw a couple of other spouting whales to our north, and one more by himself near the coastline as we were heading back to the harbor.
On our Late Morning Whale Watch Cruise we spent considerable time with a Mom Humpback and her baby — they weren’t accompanied by an escort. They were travelling a bit when we first met them so we paralleled them as they headed about a mile offshore. We watched a couple of other adult whales pass by, but none of them approached our Mom and baby. Eventually, our duo headed back close to shore just north of the harbor and then they stopped travelling completely. Maybe Mom felt safer in that shallow water? Or maybe it was naptime for the two of them? Whatever the reason for their relocation, we spent the rest of our cruise idling about 125 yards away from our now-quiet new friends.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: According to researchers, the sleep process for a Humpback is most likely very similar to how their little toothed cousins, the dolphins, sleep. EEG readings from sleeping bottlenose dolphins show that the dolphins shut down half their brains at a time to rest – a process called “uni-hemispheric slow wave sleep”. Mallard ducks and some species of seals sleep this way too. The active half of the brain presumably is monitoring breathing and perhaps scanning the surroundings for predators, while the passive half is resting. Bottlenose dolphins sleep approximately 33% of the day, but stay asleep for only a couple of hours at a time.