Aloha,

The winds were up certainly strong past weekend, so we ended up having to cancel a few charters…but we were able to operate out of Anaeho’omalu  and here are some highlights from the past few days…On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw multiple competitive pods with lots of action consisting of many males swimming fast and banging into each other. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails, we enjoyed two very close encounters with two different Mom/Calf pods. We found the first pod just outside of the Bay. Baby breached 5 times before balancing precariously on Mom’s rostrum. Mom brought him right over to the boat and we all got a good look at each other! We found the second pod a little further south. This baby breached 3 times and head lunged twice before swimming our way. Again, Mom let him come right over to the boat and swim alongside before they both took off. On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw 3 different Mom/Baby pods, and enjoyed watching yet another excited calf breach a few times. We also saw a couple of adult breaches (one fairly close by) and a couple of small competitive pods composed of smaller whales.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Though Humpback whales in different hemispheres migrate on opposite schedules (when it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere) and therefore are very unlikely to meet, no subspecies of Humpbacks are recognized genetically. In fact there has been some research done on maternal lineages that demonstrates relationships which exist in the present across hemispheric boundaries. This suggests that at one point (perhaps in the very distant past) there was some level of inter-hemispheric gene flow.