Aloha,
Our final day of Whale Watching season ended with a BANG.
Guests on our Wake up with the Whales Cruise didn’t get to see a single whale (though we heard some singing through our hydrophone), so we called the trip a Fluke and invited everyone on board to join us again for FREE.
Since we had no luck on our first cruise of the day, our expectations were low for our final cruise, but boy were we wrong about that. We spotted our first lone Humpback offshore of the Fairmont Orchid hotel. This guy was on the smallish side so we were guessing he was hanging out trying to optimize his odds of mating this season since most of the bigger males may have already begun migrating. Of course we could have been completely off base with this assumption as we could have been watching a lone female whale (it was impossible to tell from our angle). Anyway, after watching this whale for awhile we were completely blown away when we were approached by a 25′ Whale Shark (see the photo above). Whale Sharks are rare to see along our shoreline and are actually the biggest fish species in the ocean, reaching 60′ long or more. Our shark was just a kid, but he seemed as interested in checking out our boat as we were in checking him out. Finally, to top off the day (and the season), we found our favorite Humpback trio (Mom/Calf/Escort) just about 1/4 mile offshore of the Fairmont Orchid. Baby approached the boat, followed by Mom and the Escort. All of them spouted close enough that we could hear the spouts too!
As this was our last “official” day to watch whales until next season, this will be my last “official” Whale Report too (though I reserve the right to post an off-season report if we see something spectacular we want to share with you). I send a big Mahalo to all of you who read and commented on this season’s reports, and a big Mahalo to the Captains and crew of Ocean Sports who operated the cruises and shared their observations.
Even though the Whale Watching season is officially over for us, the ocean hasn’t closed up shop — we invite you to join us on any of our Snorkel Adventures Cruises, Pau Hana Sunset Cruises and/or Glass Bottom Boat Cruises to experience an adventure of your own. As evidenced by today’s cruise, you never know WHAT you’ll see!
Mahalo and A Hui Hou,
Claire