Aloha,
The best word to describe this past weekend of whale watching is “Wow”! We started the day off on Friday with our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales reporting 22 different whales. We spent a lot of time watching a very young calf playing with his mom on the surface. The baby made a couple attempts at breaching (which was really cute), but we also saw other whales breaching a total of 10 times! When we deployed the hydrophone, the songs we heard were really loud. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, guests saw 17 different whales, with one whale breaching 18 times. Our naturalist Jonathan said that he’s been seeing that particular breaching whale off and on for the last 3 weeks (based on his fluke markings, he’s easy to identify) and has named the whale “Hana Ho”. The guests also saw 2 spy hops, pec slaps and peduncle throws (the whole gamut of whale behaviors). On our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails, the highlights of the trip included 5 breaches just 400 yards from the boat, and 4 close encounters. On Saturday, we saw 20 different Humpbacks on our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales, and lots of breaching and lunging from a competitive pod of 5 whales. And on Saturday’s Whales and Cocktails, guests saw 14 different whales, but we spent most of our time with a competitive pod, watching peduncle throws and lunges. On Sunday, guests aboard our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales, saw 25 whales, 4 breaches, 6 peduncle throws and one Cow/Calf pair that most likely was accompanied by an escort. We never saw the escort, but Mom was acting pretty excited …lots of peduncle throws from her! On our 10:00 Whale Watch, guests saw 18 whales — and one of them slapped the water 26 times with his pectoral fin. By 3:00, the wind had filled in, but guests aboard our Whales and Cocktails trip saw 7 different whales and 8 peduncle throws. We also saw one fairly small calf.
Join Ocean Sports on a Whale Watch during the height of whale season in Hawaii for an adventure you’ll never forget. Call us at 886-6666 ext. 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com to reserve your spot today.
Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales have massive tongues. An 80,000 pound Humpback has a two-ton tongue!
Mahalo,
Captain Claire