Monthly Archives: January 2013

Whale Watching Season is in Full Swing

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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! 

Escorts and Breaching

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Aloha,
We had some nice times on the water on Wednesday.We saw whales on all of our trips, but the highlight of the whole day was on our 10:00 Whale Watch when we saw a total of 8 different whales. One was a pod of 3…Mom, her baby, an an escort (for a definition of the escort’s role, please see today’s Humpback Fact of the Day). We got to see 2 breaches just 25 yards from the boat. Jonathan, our on board naturalist, is pretty sure it was the escort doing the breaching since Mom and baby weren’t all that active on the surface. When we deployed the hydrophone on this trip, we heard some very clear and loud songs. As more and more whales arrive in Hawaii this season, we’re beginning to notice more sustained surface activity. Since the Humpbacks come all the way from Alaska to mate and calve…this sustained activity is an indication that the party is getting started!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: We frequently see Mom and Baby whale accompanied by a third whale. We used to think the third whale was a female helping mom take care of her baby, but now that we can identify gender more easily, we know it isn’t. It’s a male — not Dad —but a “wanna-be” Dad. Mom is capable of getting pregnant right after she gives birth (though she usually waits a year between pregnancies). So why does this new mother allow the male near her and her calf? We’ll introduce possible theories in tomorrow’s Fact of the Day.

Competitive Pods and Close Encounters

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Aloha,
Our Wednesday Whale Watches started off a with a 8 whale sightings on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. We found a competitive pod of 5 sort of lazy whales. They did some half-hearted breaches, and we did hear some trumpeting (they were breathing hard). Of course, we have no idea how long they had been competing amongst each other, so they may not have been lazy – just tired. On our 10:00 am Whale Watch from Kawaihae we started the trip with a pod of two, Mom and her calf, right outside the harbor. After we watched them for awhile, we travelled down south to watch a pretty active competitive pod of 6 whales. We went out again at 12:30 and the highlight of this trip was the close encounter, with whales swimming right under our bow! Guests on board got some great photos!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Being mammals, Humpback Moms feed their calves milk. But Humpback milk isn’t just any old milk — it’s extremely rich with a fat content of approximately 50%! Human milk is only about 4.5% fat .Supposedly, whale milk tastes like “sweetened cod liver oil” …but I don’t know that from experience!

Just How Well Does a Whale See?

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Aloha,
Our Monday started off really exciting with sightings of at least 20 different whales on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. We saw a lot of breaches in the distance but even better…we watched 5 breaches just 100 yards from the boat. We got to spend about a half hour with a Mom and her little calf…they seemed to be aware we were there (all the “oohing” and “aahing” from our guests probably tipped them off), but they didn’t seem at all bothered by our presence. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, guests saw 7 whales including one Mom with her baby. We saw 3 breaches too, and had two close encounters on the starboard side of the boat. The whales weren’t close enough for their spouts to coat our glasses, but they were close enough that we  see details on their bodies! We deployed the hydrophone on this trip and we heard singing from a whale we estimated to be about one mile away. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw 18 different whales, but spent the majority of our time with a Mom and her very young calf. Meggan, our on-board naturalist estimated this little guy to be no more than a week and a half old. We watched as he attempted several tail lobs and peduncle throws. And we saw Mom breach 15 times! At one point, we got “mugged” as both of them came over to check us out, circling the boat and looking at us (we saw Mom lift her head out of the water to see us better). Oh…and we also saw some breaches out in the distance!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The Whales “mugging” us are definitely taking a look at us. Though Humpbacks rely on their sense of hearing far more than any other sense, we do know that vision is also important to them. Based  on the shape of the Humpbacks’ corneas, they can certainly see us…but, they’re probably a bit farsighted when looking through water, and a bit nearsighted when looking through the air. And in case anyone asks you, Humpbacks have beautiful brown eyes (with at least one notable exception…but I’ll tell you about that in a future email)!

Whales in Every Direction

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Aloha,
We started a great weekend of Whale Watching with sightings of 13 whales on our 10:00 Whale Watch including 3 spectacular breaches on the horizon. On this trip, we also saw a kind of lazy competitive pod. Our on board naturalist, Dr. Jonathan, thinks this is a pod of sub-adults just kind of going through the motions. On our Whales and Cocktails cruise, guests saw 10 different whales and a couple of horizon breaches too. Highlights from the rest of the weekend included, according to Captain Shane on his Saturday Whale Watch…”plenty whales and lots of action”. On Sunday, Angelica, our on board naturalist for the Whales and Cocktails Cruise reports that they just had to get out of the bay a few minutes before they had “whales in every direction”. Guests aboard that trip saw a total of 8 whales. 6 of them were on 15 minute long breath hold dives. They also saw 3 tail lobs and a couple of breaches on the horizon.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:   An average size adult Humpback has 2 oval shaped blowholes that measure about 9 inches in diameter (on the bigger part of the oval) sitting side by side. The whales use them like you use your nostrils, exhaling through both before inhaling. If an average size human had nostril openings in the same proportion to his size as a whale’s blowholes are to the whale’s body size, each human nostril would measure about an inch and a quarter in diameter.

Crazy Calf and Lots of Surface Activity

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Aloha,
We had two really run Whale Watches on Thursday. On our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we saw a total of 8 whales — two of them were a mile or so away, but the other 6 put on quite a show. We watched a very active calf (think of any hyperactive 2 year old human kid you’ve ever met and you’ll get the idea). This baby pec slapped, double pec slapped and tail lobbed so many times that we had to stop counting at 20 for each activity and just enjoy his antics. And as if that weren’t enough, we also saw 3 full breaches just 25 yards from the boat from a couple of adults. An on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, as we were making our way out of the bay in the beginning of the trip, we saw a full breach…then a bunch of tail lobs…then a bunch of peduncle throws about 500 yards from us. The whales kept this up…but they were moving at about the same speed we were, so we got to watch a lot more of this activity from about 500 yards away. We did have one close encounter on this trip, when a smaller whale surfaced just under 100 yards from us, blew, and dived again. In all, we saw 15 different whales on this trip.
Mahalo and have a wonderful weekend. I’ll send out a weekend recap report on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:  Why would a whale waste the energy to throw the back half of his or her body out of the water in a Peduncle Throw (sometimes repetitively)?? Since the whales aren’t telling, all we can do is try to interpret their behavior in terms of what else is going on in their lives at that moment. We know that Humpbacks very rarely eat while they’re in Hawaii, and since a Peduncle Throw is a huge expenditure of energy (if you don’t believe me, try it yourself next time you’re in the ocean), it’s got to be important to the whale. Throwing half of yourself out of the water results in a huge splash and might be a way to communicate location, health, excitement, aggression or irritation to near-by whales. Especially if the near-by whale happens to be so near that he gets landed upon!

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Aloha, We had some interesting activities to watch on Wednesday’s Whale Watches. On our 10:00 Whale Watch we saw 6 whales. We watched a few competitive pods fighting amongst themselves. If you’re a Humpback, you don’t have claws or teeth, so the only way to “win” a fight or express dominance is to shove the other guys around (think pro-wrestling). From our viewpoint, this competition is really exciting. Five or six 60,000 – 70,000 pound whales pushing each other and slapping at each other right next to the boat is really exciting! We went out again from 12:30 to 2:30 and got to see another competitive pod. This pod had 4 whales in it, and they also were really active at the surface. We saw 4 tail lobs from them, and a couple of times we saw a pectoral slap (the pectoral fin is what would be an arm on a human). The water was so clear that we could see the outlines of the whales as they swam under the surface close to the boat. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise we witnessed yet another fight. This time, we stayed with a competitive pod of 4 whales and watched them battle. We saw 25 tail lobs, lots of pectoral slaps, and lots of bubble blowing (again, an aggressive maneuver for the Humpbacks). According to Captain Will, who was on all of these cruises, this was the “best day so far this season for whale watching”…and it’s only going to get better!
Mahalo, Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day : Humpback Whales (and, in fact, all Baleen Whales) demonstrate something called “reverse sexual size dimorphism”. This means that an adult female Humpback is larger than an adult male. Though researchers are not sure of the exact reason for the difference in size, they theorize that the increased size allows the female to store more reserves to feed and care for her calf, and also to give birth to a bigger calf who might have a better chance of survival than a smaller one.

Whale Ping Pong

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Aloha,
Highlights from Tuesday’s day of whale watching included the 5 large but bashful whales we saw on our 10:00 Whale Watch. Our guests saw lots of diving, and lots of flukes. We’re always happy when we can see the flukes, and we do try to photograph them…see today’s Humpback Fact of the Day for the reason why. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, guests saw 15 different whales. When we first left the Bay, we saw a pod of two that seemed pretty active…and then another pod of two. So we headed towards that first, more active pod, but wouldn’t you know it?? As soon as we got there, they got quiet, but the other pod suddenly became more active…so we decided to turn around and head back towards them. Of course, as we got closer, they quieted down but the first pod got active again…so we decided to turn around again, (whale ping-pong) and headed back towards them. This time they stayed active! We saw about 25 tail slaps from the two of them, and a couple of times they got within 100 yards of the boat (remember, we need to maintain a 100 yard distance, but it’s ok for the whales to approach us as long as we aren’t actively pursuing them). We also saw 3 breaches from other whales in the distance. At the end of this trip, we saw another competitive pod…but they were out of our range at that point and we had to go home.
 
Mahalo,
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: One of the best ways whale watchers have to identify individual Humpbacks is by the unique markings on the ventral (underside) of their flukes (tails). Currently, the National Marine Mammal Laboratory based in Seattle maintains a data base containing more than 30,000 photos of the North Pacific Humpbacks flukes for identification purposes, but other researchers, including those involved in the 3 season SPLASH (Structure of Populations, Levels of Abundance and Status of Humpbacks) project have also used these patterns to identify who’s who in the whale world and estimate population levels.

Humpbacks Singing…and Lots of Calves

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Aloha,
Highlights from Monday’s Whale Watches included what our naturalist Meggan called, a “really exciting trip – best of the season so far”! On the Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, guests saw 6 Humpbacks, including a Mom and her little calf…we also saw a few breaches – not real close, but close enough that it made for a huge splash! When we dropped the hydrophone in the water we heard some incredible singing too (if you have access to Facebook and want to hear a clip, we put a link to a snippet Hawaii Ocean Sports fan page). And Alala had a private Whale Watch from 8:00 – 10:00. Guests aboard that boat saw 7 whales including a pretty quiet Mom and calf. They also saw a long-distance breach, and they heard some great singing too.
 
Join us on any of our 3 daily Whale Watch Cruises – Call (808)886-6666 ext. 103 or visit HawaiiOceanSports.com for more information and reservations.
 
Mahalo,
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: A baby whale, called a “calf” looks so small and cute when seen playing with her Mom. But everything is relative…when the calf is born, she can already be 10 to as much as 15 feet long, and she weighs 2000 to 3000 pounds!