Aloha,

Our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales cruise on Thursday encountered 17 different Humpbacks. We saw lots of smallish pods of 2 or 3 whales, but our favorite sighting by far was of a very, very small calf whose dorsal fin was still bent over. We also saw some splashing in the distance — could have been breaches or peduncle throws. We operated two different Whale Watch cruises at 10:00. On Alala, we saw 16 whales and 3 breaches. We encountered a competitive pod, saw two Cow/Calf pods, and heard some great singing when we deployed our hydrophone. On Manu Iwa, we had what our naturalist Meagan described as “an absolutely incredible show”!  We watched a competitive pod of 6 whales that drifted along with us for more than 45 minutes — lots of tail lobs, head and body lunges and even some aggressive bubble blowing. And on our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails cruise, we saw 8 different whales — mostly just surfacing and spouting, with a few breaches in the distance.

Join Ocean Sports for a whale watch you’ll never forget. Call us at 886-6666 ext. 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com to reserve your adventure today.

Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: When we see a Humpback wave his pectoral fin, it looks really floppy — as if there were no bones inside it at all. But If you were to x-ray that fin, surprisingly, you’d find all the same bones and joints that we have in our arms — all the way down to the smallest digits of our fingers. Humpbacks are missing their third finger though.

Have a wonderful weekend — I’ll send the next report out on Monday!

Mahalo,

Captain Claire