Monthly Archives: February 2013

Spy Hopping!

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Aloha and Happy Valentines Day!
The Humpbacks showed us their love (or at the very least, their curiosity) on Thursday. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw lots of flukes, tail lobs and pecs slaps, but our on-board naturalist Angelica couldn’t get over the fact that a whale came right up to the boat and spy-hopped, clearly looking at us! This whale was accompanied by two others, who swam up too…and pec slapped. And if that weren’t enough…we saw two more close-up spy hops too, giving all onboard a trip to remember for the rest of our lives.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the next update on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  In honor of Valentines Day, here’s a fact about the Humpbacks’ hearts. A Humpback Whale has a big heart. An 80,000 pound whale’s heart averages just over 400 pounds, and according to research reported by the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, beats an average of somewhere between 10 and 30 beats per minute

Backwards Breach?

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Aloha,
On Tuesday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we encountered a competitive pod of 4 whales (one of whom we’re pretty sure we watched in a competitive pod on Monday, based on the markings on his flukes). For awhile, we watched two of the whales in this pod swimming belly to belly. Mom had her calf out in front of the group, and though to our naturalist Ryan the calf looked tired, Ryan did report that the calf was definitely keeping up with the group. We also encountered another pod with a very active tail lobber. At one point, this whale had about 80 percent of his body out of the water while lobbing…it looked like a backwards breach. On our way back to the bay, we found another pod of Mom/Baby/Escort, and watched them swim along the surface. On our 10:00 Whale Watch we saw lots of breaches and and had a couple of close encounters with whales swimming by who swung over to check us out. And we went out again at 12:30 and had a great encounter with with a Mom and her calf who decided to swim right under our boat. We deployed the hydrophone on both of these trips and heard some very loud, clear singing. We finished the day with sightings of 20 different whales on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise. We found one Mom with her Baby (no escort) and lots of pods of 3 whales. We saw some pec slapping and some beautiful fluke dives on this trip too.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers have observed that female Humpbacks don’t associate with each other at all while they’re in Hawaii. This is especially interesting in light of the fact that the females do associate with each other in Alaska — they’ll even feed cooperatively there. Since the females come here just to mate (and calve), we can postulate that female-female interaction must somehow get in the way of successful mating. Maybe groups of females would attract too many competitive males for safe mating to occur….what do you think?

More Height of the Season Competition

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Aloha,
We began our Monday Whale Watch with “tons of whales in all directions” (that’s according to our marine naturalist Angelica) sighted from the Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. She then gave us a more accurate estimate of a total of 36 whales seen throughout the cruise. We watched a Mom/Baby/Escort pod in about 60 feet of water… until we saw a competitive pod who showed us a few head lunges. We then found a pod of a couple of smaller whales, and watched them battle for awhile, seeing lots of tail lobs and peduncle throws. Just as we were returning to the bay, we saw a huge breach followed by some pec slaps (which looked to us as if the whale was waving “Aloha”). On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw about 20 different whales and lots of breaching in the distance. We watched a Mom/Baby/Escort pod hanging out on the surface. Mom was just kind of laying on her side, and the escort was swimming along just below her, but so close to the surface that we could see him really well. It was pretty windy out there, but when we were in the right position to deploy the hydrophone, we gave it a try and heard some very loud and clear songs.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: There’s a time when a whale is still in its fetal stage that it’s covered in fur. By the time the calf is born, the fur has disappeared. Many researchers believe that this is another indication that whales have evolved from an animal with a common ancestor to a hippo. The idea that the stages of an animal’s fetal development reflect evolutionary development or “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny” was first proposed by Ernst Haeckel around 1900.

Cavorting Calves All Weekend Long

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Aloha,
We saw way too much this past weekend to recap all of it…so here’s a few highlights. On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw 23 different whales, but really enjoyed watching a pod of 3 who seemed to be rolling around on top of each other. These whales came up vertically out of the water belly-to-belly a couple of times and though we didn’t see their eyes, the posture was very much like a spy hop. They also twisted and turned on the surface, and one of them pec slapped 13 times (we know that because one of our second-grade age guests kept the count for all of us). This whale also did a few complete roll-overs at the surface slapping each of his pec fins as he twisted. On the Alala on Friday, we ran two trips and saw 15 whales the first time, and 20 the second. The highlight of each of those trips was the close encounters with pods of Mom/Baby/Escort who decided to swim under our boat to check us out!
Saturday’s Whale Watches were much the same, with lots of energetic calves playing all around us. One of our favorite moments was watching a calf literally rolling around on top of Mom’s rostrum, slapping his pectoral fins (in delight?). We also loved watching a very young calf (with a completely bent over dorsal fin) attempting a couple of breaches and head lunges. We also had a couple of very close encounters with Mom/Baby/Escort pods. Each time, the baby seemed to lead the way over to us, and each time Mom actually kept herself between the baby and the escort, allowing baby to surface nearer to us. And on the Whales and Cocktails, we saw 25 different whales – no competitive pods, but plenty of Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We saw 20 adult breaches on this trip and 16 calf breaches along with lots of head lunges and tail lobs.
On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw 18 different Humpbacks and had an extremely close encounter with  a curious Humpback who swam around the boat a few times to take a look at us. And we ended the weekend with an adult Humpback breach about 70 yards from the boat. We also got to watch a baby breach over, and over, and over again…and to top it all off…we got mugged by another curious calf and her Mom.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to research reported by the Keiki Kohola project, very young calves (identified by the extent to which their fins are still furled from their time in utero) are much more active than older calves, swimming and twirling and kicking. These researchers theorize that all that exercise leads to the production of a necessary oxygen storing protein called “myoglobin”  in the whales’ muscles. One of the reasons adult humpbacks can hold their breath for 45 minutes is that they can store oxygen in their muscles (not just their lungs), and baby is training to be able to do that too.

Humpbacks Dancing at the Surface

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Aloha,
Thursday seemed to be “Baby Day” on the Kohala Coast. On the Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw two different Cow/Calf pods, one with an escort (who seemed kind of out-of-breath, because we heard some trumpeting from him). We also saw a breach about 100 yards from the boat, and several pec slaps and peduncle throws. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 6 different Cow/Calf pods including one with 4 males trailing behind. And on our 12:30 Whale Watch, guests saw 5 different Cow/Calf pods. One of these consisted of a very small Mom and Baby accompanied by a pretty big escort…and another consisted of a pretty big Mom accompanied by 4 escorts who were really battling a lot to get to her. We watched as she continually pushed her baby away from the males, and we watched a lot of aggressive shoving from those escorts (including some bubble blowing, a few head lunges, a throat inflation, and a jaw clap). The highlight of that trip though was when we encountered three adult whales who seemed to be doing some pretty interesting  head down, flukes out of the water vertical dancing. They turned and twisted all around each other for minutes at a time, then they’d disappear, only to reappear and do it all over again.
Mahalo, and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the next report recapping the weekend activity on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:Those lines we see under the Humpback’s mouth are actually pleats that allow for the expansion of her mouth when she feeds. This expansion, combined with her ability to flex her jaws, allows her to hold up to 15,000 gallons of sea water in her mouth at one time — that’s the equivalent of 160,000 cans of Diet Pepsi (or Budweiser) in every gulp — of course, she doesn’t swallow the water she gulps…just the unlucky fish that had been swimming in it.

Humpback Calves Play in the Sun

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Aloha,
Wednesday brought us a perfect day for sailing and whale watching. The only Whale Watch we ran was our Whales and Cocktails Cruise at 3:00 pm from Anaeho’omalu Bay on Seasmoke. We were treated to a whole bunch of really excited calves. We saw 6 different Mom/Baby pods – all within a mile of the bay. 4 of those pods were accompanied by at least one escort. The calves seemed to be enjoying the weather too as we saw one calf breach 14 times! Another calf breached 5 times, and head lunged twice. We also saw multiple tail lobs and pec slaps from an adult whale, and a couple of breaches and peduncle throws from one of the moms who was accompanied by (or more likely, bothered by) an escort. When we dropped the hydrophone in the water, we heard a whale “symphony”. Lots of whales were singing, though none was really very close to us. If you have access to facebook and want to see some photos from last night’s cruise, visit the Hawaii Ocean Sports fan page (type”Hawaii Ocean Sports” into the search box) – Captain Jeff shared some great shots with us.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales play host to all kinds of other animals. Besides the barnacles we often see on the Humpbacks’ flukes and other skin surfaces, the whales can also carry tape worms, lung worms, sinus flukes, and whale lice (which are related to skeleton shrimp) among others. Not all of these parasites actually harm the whale (which means that technically, they can’t really all be considered“parasites”). In fact, the barnacles might actually benefit the male Humpbacks who appear to use the sharp edges of the shells (perhaps inadvertently) as weapons during competitive battles.

Motorboating and Piggy Backing

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Aloha,
Tuesday’s Whale Watches brought us all kinds of activities. On the Breakfast with the Whales, as we left the bay we found a competitive pod of 5 whales. They were really battling it out, with lots of tail lobs, motorboating (this term describes exactly what it sounds like it describes…whales moving through the water with their heads angled up so they look like boats), and even some piggy backing. And right after we saw this pod of 5, another competitive pod of 4 popped up right near us. This pod was clearly out of breath as we heard lots of trumpeting from them. We also ran a special 10:00 Whale Watch for the kids from Laupahoehoe. On this cruise, we saw 16 different whales, but the highlight definitely was watching baby and mom take turns breaching (4 times), head lunging (twice) and pec slapping (3 times).  And on our Whales and Cocktails cruise, we saw 16 whales. We saw LOTS of pec slapping, 9 peduncle throws (from different whales) and several different competitive pods. The last pod we watched was a a pod of 4, and though we all wished we could see what was going on below the surface, based on what we could see from above, it must have been a big shoving match. From our vantage point we got to see lots of twisting fluke dives, and lots of whales on top of other whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers are not sure how Humpbacks find their way from Alaska to Hawaii each winter…after all, Hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world. Since small particles of a form of iron called “magnetite” have been found in Humpback’s brains, some researchers theorize that the magnetite acts like a magnet, helping the Humpbacks to feel the magnetic pull of the earth and keeping them on track. Other researchers disagree, claiming that the Humpbacks swim in such straight lines  when they migrate that they must be orienting themselves with a combination of methods, including some celestial markers like the position of the sun during the day, and the stars at night.

Slow Motion Breaches

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Aloha,
Monday brought us some really blustery conditions, and it was challenging finding the whales, but when we did…oh boy, was it worth it! On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw a total of 15 whales and saw 6 breaches. One of those breaches was only about 25 yards away. When it’s that close, you really get an idea of how big a Humpback actually is, and it looks like slow motion as the whale launches herself completely out of the water.We also saw 4 tail lobs, a peduncle throw and 4 pec slaps. It was too windy for us to deploy our hydrophone, but our onboard naturalist Jonathan played some tapes of the whales, so everyone got to hear the differences between the singing that goes on in Hawaii and the vocalizing in Alaska.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Though we’ve mentioned before that only male Humpback Whales “sing”, all Humpbacks make noises and apparently use these sounds to communicate with each other. Researchers have witnessed cooperative feeding behaviors among the Humpbacks apparently“triggered” by sound, and have also witnessed Humpback Cows (moms) apparently ignoring some sounds made by their calves (researchers called these sounds“goo-goo, ga-ga” noises), but responding immediately when the calves made particular squealing noises. So it appears that Mom recognizes her baby’s voice!

Muggings and More

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Aloha,
Friday brought us some heavy winds so we only ran a couple of Whale Watch Charters. On the Breakfast with the Whales, we saw lots of surface activities, but the highlight of the trip was our close encounter with a Mom and her Baby who were curious enough to swim by and check us out. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 15 different Humpbacks including 4 Mom/Baby pods, three of whom were accompanied by an escort. We also saw 3 different species of dolphins – Spinners, Bottlenose, and Spotted.
The winds calmed a bit on Saturday and we had some great sightings. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we stopped counting at 23 whales. The highlight of the trip was watching a competitive pod of 5 whales really charging each other. At one point we all watched as one of the males literally swam right over another male on the surface. We saw peduncle throws, tail lobs, and head lunges from this group too. On the Whales & Cocktails Cruise, both Seasmoke and Manu Iwa were mugged by a very curious whale. First, the whale spent 35 minutes right next to Seasmoke, and then he swam over to Manu Iwa and stayed for another 25 minutes. It was unreal! We also saw head lunges, breaches, tail lobs, and pec slaps but our memories of exactly how many of each of those activities we saw were erased after the muggings! If you’d like to see photos from this incredible cruise, go to the Hawaii Ocean Sports Fan Page on Facebook.
On Sunday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, guests saw 20 whales including 5 Cow/Calf/Escort pods. We saw lots of surface activity too, including 5 breaches, 10 tail lobs, a couple of peduncle throws and lots of pec slaps. At one point we found ourselves surrounded by 4 different Mom/Baby pods..one on each side of the boat, one at the bow, and one at the stern. And on the Whales & Cocktails Cruise, we saw 35 different whales…there was so much surface activity that we couldn’t keep accurate counts! We loved watching a very active baby whale breaching, tail lobbing, and pec slapping right along side his mom who was doing the same activities! We also loved watching a different calf ride along on top of her Mom’s rostrum…and another highlight was watching yet another calf lying on his back, double pec slapping. This was another one of those whale watches that had action every where you looked and every time you looked. I hate to keep using exclamation marks but I can’t figure out a better way to describe what we were seeing this weekend than by doing this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Most Humpbacks are “right-handed”. Researchers looking at abrasions on Humpbacks’jaws found more abrasions on the right jaw than on the left, and observed more“flippering” with the right flipper than with the left, suggesting a definite right-side preference among the Humpback population.