Aloha,
Our last Friday of Whale Watching this season was a fun one.
It took us almost 40 minutes to find whales during Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise, but when we did, we got to see quite a bit. We found a pair of Humpbacks about 2 miles from shore, and they were spending a considerable amount of time interacting with each other on the surface. We got to watch them twist their huge bodies around each other and lift parts of their flukes out of the water as they turned to dive. A couple of times, they surfaced and spouted just 50 yards from our idling boat.
We found the same pair of whales during our Late-Morning Whale Watch Cruise. This time, it took us an hour, but this time the whales seemed interested in our arrival. They both swam right under the boat two different times –close enough to the surface that we could see their entire bodies, and also close enough that they could easily see us from underwater. We also got to watch them head lunging at each other. Oh, and once they surfaced just 10 yards from us, clearly taking a look at us from the vantage point of the surface. Were they curious about us? Did they like us? Or were we just another object around which to maneuver in their current environment? Of course we don’t know, but we prefer to think they enjoyed our presence as much as we enjoyed theirs.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: The smooth round flat spot we see on the water after a whale dives is called the “footprint” (see the photo above). Whalers thought it was caused by oil from the whale’s skin calming the surface of the water, but water samples have proven that theory to be false. When a whale dives (or kicks just below the surface) his flukes break the surface tension of the water and create a vertical wake, forming the circular footprint.