Monthly Archives: March 2013

Mugged Again

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Aloha,
Thursday’s Breakfast with the Whales was a LOT of fun. We’re still seeing lots of blows in all directions, and we’re still seeing lots of calves. On this trip we found 3 different Mom/Calf pods including one pod with a very, very small calf. This pod spent a good 15 minutes right next to our boat. We all got to watch baby rolling around and off of mom’s head (which must be a pretty fun game if you’re a baby whale). We also saw quite a bit of Mom, until she decided to dive under her baby…and then surprise all of us with 2 complete breaches about 15 yards from the boat! When we deployed the hydrophone, we heard some very clear and loud singing. We also saw a lot of other breaches somewhat further away from the boat. The rest of the day was equally great, with lots of blows, fluke dives, Mom/Calf/Escort pods and competitive pods. We did see some pec slaps and head lunges from one very active calf, and some breaches from a couple of adults. We also saw peduncle throws and tail lobs from some competitive adults.
Mahalo and have a great weekend! I’ll send out a weekend recap on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Being mammals, Humpbacks have belly buttons – in case you’re wondering….they’re “innies”.

Wild Wednesday

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Aloha,
We had a busy day on the water on Wednesday, and so did the whales. All day long we watched pods of Mom/Baby/Escort, and competitive pods. In fact, seeing a Humpback by him or her self was a rare sighting. Over the course of the day, we saw 12 breaches, 27 (we counted) tail lobs, 16 pec slaps, multiple peduncle throws and lots of “unidentifiable splashes”. We were mugged a few times by curious Mom/Baby pods, who always seemed to be accompanied by escorts. We did get to hear some trumpeting from “out-of-breath” participants in competitive pods. When we dropped our hydrophones, we still were hearing very loud and clear songs. This has been a very interesting season so far. The last count of the Humpbacks sponsored by the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale Marine Sanctuary takes place this coming Saturday, March 30th…but anecdotally, it appears to us that there has been a higher population density of Humpbacks off the Kohala Coast this year than in previous years. After the count results are released, we’ll let you know if our unscientific observations are correct.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  In August 2008, the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) changed the status of the Humpback Whale from “Vulnerable” to “Least Concern” reflecting the general upward trend of population levels. According to IUCN standards, animal populations in the “Least Concern” category are at a low risk for extinction. The IUCN classifies the status of Humans in the same category.

Wild Times on the Water

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Aloha,
We had a wild show on Tuesday’s 10:00 Whale Watch. We found a competitive pod of 8 whales right off of Puako. We’re guessing it was composed of one female and 7 males…but we suppose it could have been just 8 competitive males. Regardless, we watched this group for our entire whale watch. We saw lots of trumpeting, lots of whales shoving other whales around, bubble blowing, chin lifts, peduncle throws and well…the ocean was churning from all their surface activity. It’s exhausting just trying to recount this…we can only imagine how exhausted the whales must be feeling! And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, our onboard naturalist Angelica, reports that it was the best trip of her life! Leaving the bay, we saw what we thought was a competitive pod because we could see lots of splashing. As we approached, we realized it was a Cow/Calf/Escort pod. The adults were acting really aggressively towards each other…lots of chasing, lunging, and trumpeting, and it appeared to us that the poor little calf was just trying to stay out of the way. Apparently in the midst of all this chasing around, Mom saw our boat because she turned right towards us, leading the male to us too. All three of them spent the next hour swimming back and forth from side to side and bow to stern under the boat. At one point one of the adults did a tail lob so close to the stern that it splashed all of us! Baby seemed to like looking at the boat (very curious)…and as we watched this incredible show, the whole boat was rocking from the waves these whales were creating. The other interesting thing we noticed was as these whales spent more and more time using our boat for whatever purpose they were using it, they did seem to calm down a bit. We’re not sure if they were getting tired or just found us to be an interesting diversion.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The maternal instinct of the Humpback is so strong that she’ll even take care of other small animals in danger! In 2009, 2 scientists sailing off the coast of South America watched as a pod of Orcas flipped a Weddell Seal off an ice flow. The seal began swimming towards a nearby Humpback. Just as the seal got close, the whale rolled onto her back, sweeping the 400 pound seal onto her chest. As the Orcas closed in, the Humpback arched her back, which lifted the seal out of the water…unfortunately for the seal, the water rushing off the whale started to wash the seal back into the sea. The scientists were astounded to see the Humpback use her flipper to gently nudge the floundering seal back onto her chest…moments later, the seal slid back into the water and swam to the safety of a nearby ice flow.

Baby Rides Along

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Aloha,
The whale action is still going strong! On our 10:00 Whale Watch we saw more than a dozen whales. We had a few close encounters with different Mom/Calf/Escort pods, and saw some breaches a little ways from the boat. Of course our favorite sight is watching a calf watch us, and we did get to see that during the trip. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw a Mom and her Calf just as we left the bay. Mom was being chased by an escort, and she put her baby out in front (so baby could “ride along” on the pressure wave she created as she swam away from the escort). After that, we found another Mom/Calf pod…and this time, we got to see the baby breach. We also saw a few peduncle throws and some tail lobs from various other adult Humpbacks throughout the trip.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The Humpbacks we see off Hawaii’s coastlines travel quite a bit between the islands, but researchers have yet to observe a directional trend. In other words, some whales travel North to South, some South to North, and some travel back and forth…a lot like our human visitors. 

Mugged for 40 minutes!

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Aloha,
Though it’s getting to the end of our Whale Watch Season, we had some incredible cruises and experiences this weekend. On Saturday’s10:00 Whale Watch, we saw about 18 whales all together, including three different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We had close encounters with two of the Mom/Baby/Escort pods, and also saw a competitive pod doing their usual aggressive posturing. On Saturday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise we motored around till we saw a breach. And while we were investigating the breacher, two different Mom/Baby/Escort pods found us! It was strange seeing them so close together, especially when each of these groups decided to spend time with us. We were mugged by these two pods for 40 minutes, and got to see a spy hop about 5 feet from the boat, and watch one of the calves breach 3 times about 20 feet from the boat. On the 10:00 Whale Watch on Sunday, we saw lots of different whales…lots of spouting and fluke dives too.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:In 2004, a company called Whale Power was founded by Dr.Frank Fish, Dr. Phil Watts and Stephen Dewar. The company builds fan blades shaped like a Humpback’s Pectoral Fins with tubercles on the leading edge. The ironically named Dr.Fish was inspired to develop the prototype after looking at a sculpture of a Humpback, and pondering how (or if) the bumps on the front of the whale’s fins would help him move efficiently through the water. He and his partners enlisted the help of the Navy and used their wind tunnel to discover that tubercles break up air (or water flow)…and now with the whale-inspired design, Whale Power’s turbine blades are not only more efficient than smooth blades, but they never stall out violently like smooth blades do, and thus don’t damage the turbine engines. The company’s motto… “A Million Years of Field Tests”.

Breach! Breach!

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Aloha,
On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw a couple of different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. Lately, we’ve been noticing that our Mom whales have been allowing their curious calves to approach the boat for an investigation, and that’s exactly what happened today. We had two close encounters from two different calves…of course where the calf goes, Mom is close to follow, and each Mom let her calf hang out with us for a little while. We also found a competitive pod with 2 escorts, a Mom, and her calf. One of the escorts in this pod was acting pretty aggressively with lots of trumpeting. There were too many breaches, tail lobs, head lunges and peduncle throws from this pod to even keep track. We went back out again from
10:00 – 12:30, and from 12:30 – 2:30. During the course of these two trips we saw more than 35 Humpbacks. On the first trip, we saw one Mom/Baby pod who did come right up to the boat. We also saw quite a bit of tail lobbing and a few peduncle throws, and for the grand finale…a full breach very close by. On the second trip, the whales were a little quieter, but we did get to see another close-by breach.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the weekend recap on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to researchers, the sleep process for a Humpback is most likely very similar to how their little toothed cousins, the dolphins, sleep. EEG readings from sleeping bottlenose dolphins show that the dolphins shut down half their brains at a time to rest. The active half presumably is monitoring breathing and perhaps scanning the surroundings for predators. Bottlenose dolphins sleep approximately 33% of the day, but stay asleep for only a couple of hours at a time.

Right Under Us!

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Aloha,
We started our Wednesday off on a nice, calm ocean, but the whales were anything but calm! On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw 2 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We stayed with each of them for quite awhile…and the calf from the second pod delighted us when she breached 3 times right next to the boat! We also saw pec slaps and tail lobs from different adults, and when we dropped the hydrophone, we heard some very clear songs. For a grand finale on this cruise, another pod of whales swam right under the boat. Captain Scotty turned off the motors, and was able to see the whales on our depth sounder…and to top it off, the whales then decided it would be a good idea to pop up  5 feet from the boat…we couldn’t believe our luck (or their curiosity). As the wind came up through the day, we saw lots more surface activities. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw multiple breaches, pec slaps and tail lobs. We also saw several peduncle throws and some other splashes (not sure which behaviors caused those…but whatever was going on was HUGE).
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: In 1919, R.G. Meyers, who was working towards his PhD in Chemistry at Stanford University, conducted a chemical analysis of Humpback whale blood collected from the thoracic cavity of a whale killed in Monterey Bay. He found that the Humpback’s total cholesterol level was similar to a healthy human’s, but the glucose level was 4 times what’s considered a “healthy” level for a human. Since there’s not a lot of carbohydrates in a Humpback’s diet, he theorized that a Humpback’s liver and pancreas work differently than ours.

Calves Galore

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Aloha,
We saw lots of whales on all three Whale Watch Cruises on Tuesday so instead of giving you a cruise by cruise run down, I’ll just share some of the highlights. Several times throughout the day we were approached by curious whales who spent time cruising under our boats and alongside. We saw lots of Mom/Baby/Escort pods (typical for this time of year), and a few competitive pods. No matter which way we looked throughout the day, we saw splashes from breaches, head lunges, and tail lobs. Our favorite encounter all day though was with a very small but very energetic calf. Sometimes it appears to us that a Humpback Calf is just the embodiment of joy! And when we dropped our hydrophone throughout the day, we did pick up some clear and loud singing (which is much more what we expected than the silence we heard on Monday).
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though we don’t get to witness it here (at least not very often), Humpbacks have devised a very creative way to feed called “Bubble Net” feeding. A cooperative pod will dive under schools of krill, herring or other small fish. One whale will begin swimming in circles, and blowing bubbles out of his (or her) blowholes. Bubbles, as they rise, expand, which creates a “net” entrapping the prey. Once the prey are balled together inside the circle of bubbles, the whales will take turns lunging through the middle of the circle to gulp their lunch. The whole process is accompanied by lots of vocalizations, culminating in a loud “shriek” right as the bubble net reaches the surface and right before the whales surface…we’re pretty sure the loud noises help to scare the fish upward and further compact the “bait ball”.

What…No Song???

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Aloha,

We had a nice day of Whale Watching on Monday. We ran 3 different cruises but on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had 3 close encounters with curious Humpbacks, and saw lots of Mom/Baby/Escort pods, some breaches and tail lobs fairly close by, and lots of surface activities creating big splashes within a mile or so of us. On this cruise, we deployed the hydrophone and heard something weird…no song! The reason we think this is strange is that generally, this time of year, the male Humpbacks in Hawaii are in a highly competitive state battling for access to the remaining receptive females. Since recent research on the meaning of the song in the Humpback culture seems to support the idea that it singing is a way for the males to sort out social status and relationships, the fact that we didn’t hear it during this crucial part of mating season really is odd. Of course, it could have just been a coincidence that the one time we had the hydrophone in the water, the males in the vicinity were too busy charging around on the surface to sing. We’ll drop the hydrophone again today and see if this was just a fluke!

Mahalo, Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The smooth round flat spot we see on the water after a whale dives is called the “footprint”. Whalers thought it was caused by oil from the whale’s skin calming the surface of the water, but water samples have proven that theory to be false. When a whale dives (or kicks just below the surface) his flukes break the surface tension of the water and create a vertical wake, forming the footprint.

Young Calves and Lots of Escorts

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Aloha,

We started our weekend with some strange stormy weather on Friday. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we spent most of our time with a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Baby led Mom right up to the boat a few times, and though the baby seemed pretty big and had a fairly straight dorsal fin (indicating he was not a new-born) both Mom and the Escort were fairly small (by Humpback standards), suggesting to us that they were both fairly young. We did see some head lunging about 800 yards from us too. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 15 different Humpbacks, and 4 different Mom/Baby pods.
On Saturday’s Breakfast With the Whales we saw every behavior we could hope for on a whale watch including multiple breaches from a very energetic calf, adult tail lobs and peduncle throws, pec slaps, and even some adult breaches!
And on Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we found 3 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, including one with a very, very small calf. Each of these pods decided to swing by the boat, so we had some great close encounters. We also saw a double breach from two adult whales (always exciting) and towards the end of the cruise we found a competitive pod who were doing a lot of trumpeting, head lunges and bubble blowing beneath the surface. At one point we were downwind from a spout and it really smelled kind of horrible. We finished the weekend of Whale Watching with a Whales and Cocktail Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay. We got to see several Mom/Calf pods, and they got to see us too (we had lots of close encounters). We also saw a lot of tail lobbing, breaching, and peduncle throws. And when we dropped our hydrophone into the water, we were surprised by the clarity of the songs we heard. Oh…and at the end of the day, the sun came out again, making for a beautiful end to the weekend.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  According to research conducted in Japan, the peak estrus period for Humpbacks (i.e. when females are in heat) overall, is between the end of January and the end of February, but the peak estrus period for females with a calf appears to be several weeks later. Our frequent observations of pods of Mom and Baby who are accompanied by an escort this time of year seem to support the validity of these findings.