Words Don’t Do it Justice

Aloha,

As we boarded our guests for our Monday Wake up with the Whales Cruise, we could see a storm with lightening off to the northwest…near Maui. Luckily the lightening didn’t come our way, or we would have had to cancel the trip out of an abundance of caution. We headed south (away from any rain) and got to see a whole lot of Humpbacks. Highlights included at least 7 different breaches — none of them were particularly close to us, but all of them appeared to be out of the blue from lone Humpbacks. We all got to see a pair of big adult Humpbacks surface, and swim on the surface just about 100 yards from us. These whales were close enough that the sounds they made when they spouted startled us!

Our Late Morning Whale Watch Cruise was really exciting, and this description just won’t do it justice. We found a competitive pod of 5 whales south of Anaeho’omalu Bay. These whales must have breached 30 times while we watched. We also saw multiple head lunges, pec slaps and tail lobs as they battled it out on the surface. Eventually, this group headed south and we had to head back towards the bay…but on the way back, we found another Humpback who was tail lobbing over and over and over again.

Mahalo,

Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: Why don’t diving whales have to clear their ears like we do when we’re diving (or changing altitude in an airplane)? It turns out that whales have pretty rigid Eustachian tubes (those are the tiny tubes that run between your throat and your middle ear). So, unlike what happens to most of us who have to force air through our collapsible Eustachian tubes to equalize pressure in our ears, the airflow is basically unimpeded for our cetacean friends!