Aloha,

You know the whale season is in full swing when the naturalists see so many whales they forget to count! On our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales, our naturalist Logan reports seeing “a whole bunch of whales”. Not a very accurate count…but when the action is this good, it’s hard to keep track! Guests also saw a Mom and her calf fairly close to the boat. They saw two breaches in the distance and lots of tail lobs. The same thing happened on our other whale watches, with the naturalists describing the trips as “so many whales we didn’t know where to look”! On our Whales & Cocktails Cruise, Adam, our on board naturalist, gave his best guesstimate as sighting 20 different whales throughout the course of the trip. He reports that the highlight of this trip was watching 2 whales breaching right next to each other. All that energy and splashing apparently attracted the attention of some other Humpbacks as we all got to watch 5 more whales join the breachers.

Mahalo and Have a Great Weekend. I’ll send the weekend recap out on Monday.

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Yesterday I promised to discuss a few theories about why a female Humpback with a calf would allow males to approach her since she doesn’t appear to be receptive to getting pregnant while she’s caring for a calf, and since DNA studies have proven that the escort isn’t the calf’s father. Researchers have observed Mom and Baby accompanied by a male escort about 83% of the time during the winter season in Hawaii, so she must have her reasons…one theory is that the escort is trying to make a good impression on the female so that when she finally is receptive, she’ll consider the possibility of mating with him. Other researchers theorize that she puts up with the company of one male, hoping that he’ll scare off other amorous suitors….maybe dealing with one male at a time is easier than having to deal with 2, 3, 4 or more!