Suprised at the End

12/19/2024

Aloha,

We ran a couple of very fun Whale Watch Cruises from Anaeho’omalu Bay on Thursday.

Guests on our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise got to see a half dozen different Humpbacks multiple times. The cruise started with two huge splashes from a breaching Humpback about 800 yards from us, but on the way out to see this whale we were distracted by sightings of some other Humpbacks surfacing just about 200 yards away. After they sounded, we deployed our hydrophone and heard some fairly loud and distinct Humpback voices. For the rest of the cruise, we were surrounded by periodic sightings of whales who surfaced to breathe, but all of them were a good 150 – 200 yards from us.

On our Late Morning Whale Watch Cruise, we headed out to sea where we all got to see a pair of whales breach about 400 yards from us (we all happened to be looking in the correct direction when it happened — and that’s a rare occurence). Later, while we had our hydrophone in the water eavesdropping on the singing, we were surprised when a pair of adult Humpbacks surfaced just about 40 feet from us. Apparently, they were as interested in us as we were in them, because they spent the next 30 minutes swimming around the boat never getting further than about 100 yards from us. Towards the end of our time with them, one of them did a HUGE tail lob…and then a whale we didn’t even know was there seemed to answer with a huge breach just about 500 yards away.

Mahalo,

Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: In my 12/17 report, I promised I’d outline the rules regulating human to Humpback interaction. In 1966, the International Whaling Commission banned most nations from hunting Humpbacks. In the U.S., the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 provide additional protection to the whales. And though the Humpbacks are now no longer “officially endangered”, unless you’re operating under a federal research permit, approaching humpback whales within 100 yards (300 feet) by any means (boat, swimming, kayaking etc) or within 1,000 feet from aircraft is still prohibited. It’s also prohibited to approach the whales closer than 100 yards by interception (i.e. you can’t “hop-scotch” in front of them), or do anything that would disrupt their “normal behavior” or “prior activity”.