Mugged, Spy Hops and a Shark

Aloha,
We ran a lot of whale watches on Thursday, so I’ll just summarize some of the highlights. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we were mugged by a Mom and her baby who were being pursued by two escorts. We saw a couple of great double pec slaps as mom was lying on her back waving those pec fins (we’re pretty sure she was trying to give those escorts the message that she wanted nothing to do with them). Baby seemed to be having a lot of fun rolling around on Mom’s head and down her pectoral fins. At one point, the two of them came right up to the stern of the boat, and just under the surface, Mom rolled over on to her back and cradled the baby in between her pectoral fin and the left side of her body. Just after that, baby did a spy hop which included a 360 degree spin. This baby was really young – he was a very light shade of grey and had a very bent dorsal fin.
On the next cruise, we saw the same Mom and baby, and this time both of them breached multiple times  – first mom, then baby, then mom, then baby again (and baby kept going for awhile). Of course we can’t be certain that she was teaching him or that he was mimicking her, but it sure was interesting to watch. On the 12:30 cruise, we were mugged again by a different Mom/Calf/Escort pod. These whales stayed with the boat for about 15 minutes. We also saw several tail lobs and some peduncle throws about 500 yards away. As we were heading north to get back to the bay at the end of this cruise, we were passed by a competitive pod of 7 (or possibly 8 – it was impossible to count) BIG whales charging south. They came right by the boat, mostly motor boating (a behavior that describes their posture as they swim fast on the surface), but we also saw a few chin lifts and a couple of piggy backs as they passed us. Even if we were heading the same direction as they were, we’d never have been able to keep up with this pod.
And on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had close encounters with 3 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, and saw several tail lobs and peduncle throws about 500 yards away. Just north of the Bay we did see an unusual thing…we saw a very big shark cruise by. Our naturalist Mike wasn’t able to identify the species, but he did say it was really big!
Mahalo, and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the weekend recap on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the DayDo you know the easiest way to distinguish whether that big creature swimming rapidly towards you is a whale or a shark? Watch the way it swims…whales propel themselves through the water by moving their tails up and down vertically. Sharks and other fish move their tails from side to side. Aristotle was the first person to document this difference around 350 B.C. Hopefully you’ll never need to use this information for anything other than winning a trivia contest!

What Attracts a Whale

Aloha, On Wednesday we ran only one whale watch… but guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise had quite the experience! We started the cruise by watching a whale breach 3 times. It was so exciting that it took our collective breath away (we can only imagine how the whale must have felt after all that exertion). And then we found a  pod  of two adults – or rather, they found us! They seemed to think we were something worth investigating because they swam around us, looking at us for a long time. We were theorizing that these whales were both male and that they were thinking that our long, sleek hulls were shaped a lot like a female whale…And just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, these two whales were joined by a third whale who decided to “mug” us for awhile too. Days like today make us very excited to see what tomorrow will bring.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the DayHumpback whales can’t cry — they don’t have tear ducts (they don’t need them — their eyes are always bathed in salt water) but they do have glands on their outer corneas which secrete an oily substance that helps to protect their eyes from debris in the ocean

Calm Ocean = Calm Whales

Aloha,
The ocean was so calm on Tuesday, and the skies overcast, so it felt as if we were cruising on a silvery mirror. The whales seemed pretty calmed by it all too. In the morning, all three of our catamarans went out for a two hour whale watch out of Kawaihae Harbor. Guests on Manu Iwa began their trip with a pod of Spinner Dolphins near Black Point. These dolphins were mostly swimming along the surface but we did see a few phenomenal spinning flips from a juvenile in the pod. We spent most of our Whale Watch time sitting near a pod of three big adults. Based on their behavior, we were guessing it was two males pursuing a female. We saw 4 pec slaps from the whale in front, and a couple of little tail lobs (we think this was the female).For awhile, when the two males were within touching distance of her, we saw her pick up her speed and even lift her chin out of the water. We saw some bubble blowing from the male closest to her (an aggressive move meant to block the other male). Towards the end of the cruise, we found a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. The adults in this pod were notably smaller than the three we had spent most of the day watching. Baby surfaced a few times, and we got to see him do a 360 degree roll down Mom’s rostrum. When we deployed the hydrophone, we heard a symphony of whales –  and at least two of them sounded pretty close by.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to research conducted by the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, a Humpback’s heart beats an average of 40bpm, but the whales do experience periods of tachycardia and bradycardia during dives. 

A Breach To End All Breaches

Aloha,
The winds calmed down on Monday allowing for some great whale watching! On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw one incredible breach (and lots of other breaching a bit further away). We also saw two different Mom/Baby pods – both accompanied by escorts. One of the babies was curious about us and swam right up to us for a look. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, it seemed to us that the whales wanted to rest. We saw lots of spouts, lots of peduncle arches (the posture that gives the whales their common name “Humpback”) and lots of flukes. At 12:30, everyone woke up again. We had a close encounter with a Mom and her Baby for just about 20 minutes. These whales seemed to enjoy us as much as we were enjoying them. And then, towards the end of the cruise, we found a competitive pod who came within 200 yards of us. They were really aggressive towards each other – and we actually got to watch one whale swim right up on top of another one, kind of sinking him and shoving him at the same time. And if that wasn’t enough, just before we got back to the bay, we found a pod of Spinner Dolphins! And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we were all watching whales on one side of the boat when we got a surprise visit from a Mom and calf who then decided to stay right with us for about 20 minutes. After they left, we found a competitive pod who were head lunging and charging. And then…out of nowhere, we were all surprised when a BIG whale decided to do a full breach just about 50 yards from the boat. As Captain Will reports…it was just “FANTASTIC”.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Before whaling was banned internationally, Humpback whales’ livers were processed for their oil, which contained a lot of vitamin A. A fully grown Humpback has a liver that weighs between 800 and 1400 pounds.

Lots of Tri-Pods

Aloha,
We can certainly tell by our weekend of whale watching that it’s the beginning of March! This is the part of the season for us when traditionally, we see the highest proportion of pods consisting of Mom/Baby/Escort, and also when we see lots of competitive pods. We ran a lot of whale watches these past few days, so I’ll just list some of the highlights.
On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw more than two dozen different whales, but we focused our attention on three different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We got to watch some pretty cute acrobatics from a couple of different babies who seemed to think that rolling around on Mom’s rostrum was a good way to spend the morning. We had 4 very close encounters on that trip with different pods…and to top it off, we got to watch a pod of Spinner Dolphins towards the end of our cruise, right outside of the Bay.
On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we started seeing whales before we even got on the boat! Two whales just outside of the bay were breaching and peduncle throwing multiple times while our guests boarded. And once aboard, we found 4 different competitive pods, and we saw breaching, tail lobs and peduncle throws from two of the pods. The other two pods seemed very intent on the chase. We also found two Mom/baby/escort pods.
And on Sunday, guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales started the cruise with a pod of Spinner Dolphins just outside of the bay. We also saw 4 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, a couple of fantastic breaches, and some very energetic tail lobbing and peduncle throws.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:Though measuring the length and weight of a Humpback’s internal organs is not really an exact science, it’s been estimated that the intestines of a fully grown Humpback whale are about 200 feet long (approximately 5 times the length of her body).

Spy Hops and Songs

Aloha,
On Thursday’s Breakfast with the Whales, guests saw lots of whales surfacing, breathing and diving. It seemed like no matter which direction we looked, a whale was up. We also saw 4 breaches close to the boat and had a couple of nice close encounters with curious Humpbacks. Our Whales and Cocktails Cruise started off kind of slow, with lots of “blows and goes”, but then we found a Mom and her baby who wanted to play with the boat. They came right up to us and both of them spy hopped twice, clearly taking a look at us. We then found a couple of other whales who seemed very interested in us whenever we had the boat in gear and were travelling parallel to them. As soon as we turned the engines off and went into stealth mode, these whales would dive…so we’d start up again, which would bring them to the surface. It might have been a coincidence…but it sure seemed like they wanted to travel along side a moving boat, and quickly got bored with a quiet one! We ended the evening seeing a couple of breaches a little further away, and some HUGE peduncle throws close by.
Mahalo, and have a great weekend. I’ll send the next report out on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  Researchers studying the totally geographically isolated Arabian Sea Humpbacks have recently noted that these Humpbacks sing songs that are a whole level less complex than the songs Humpbacks in every other ocean of the world sing. Arabian Humpback songs are comprised of notes, making phrases, that are repeated in the same order, while other Humpbacks group the phrases into themes and the repeated themes comprise the song.
If I’m interpreting this correctly, the Arabian Humpbacks’ version of say “Old McDonald Had a Farm” would feature only one farm animal, and  they’d be singing about that one animal over and over and over. Humpbacks elsewhere would be able to use the structured verse to sing about lots of different animals on the farm…If there are any music theorists out there please help me out. Here’s a link to a story about the research….http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21592348.

Siren’s Song

Aloha,
We saw lots of Moms and Babies on our Wednesday Whale Watches. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, guests got to see a very curious baby swim right along side of us (which is always fun)…but what was even more fun was when the baby decided to check out our boarding ladder and swam right under our bow trampolines. Though it’s difficult to come up with the correct words to describe this, suffice it to say that lying on the trampolines under the warm Waikoloa sun, looking down into the turquoise water is a pretty perfect experience, but when you add a little Humpback who’s obviously playing with the boat, you’ve just created a memory for life! On the 12:30 Whale Watch, we saw lots of whales as we headed south to Keawa’iki. When we got there, we found a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. We couldn’t tell who was making all the noise, but we didn’t even have to drop the hydrophone into the water to hear the vocalizations…the sounds reverberated right through the hulls! We know that only male Humpbacks sing, but without a way to actually record and analyze the sounds we were hearing, we couldn’t be sure if we were listening to the escort singing his song or to Mom and/or baby vocalizing. This is exactly the experience that created the myth of the Siren’s Song…uneducated (and lonely) sailors centuries ago could hear these sounds in the holds of their boats. Without a good explanation of who or what was producing the noises they were hearing, they came to the conclusion that they were listening to enchanting (and lonely) mermaids who were trying to lure them to wreck their ships on their islands….
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claires’ Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  The haunting song of the Humpback has actually travelled beyond our oceans. In 1977, NASA launched two Voyager space crafts. Aboard each was a golden record with a collection of sights, sounds and greetings from Earth in 54 different human languages. These records also includegreetings from Humpback whales! And that was just the first time the whales’ song travelled beyond our planet…On Earth Day (4/22) in 2005, a private organization called Deep Space Network broadcast a live feed from a hydrophone off the coast of Maui of the Humpbacks singing. They used a five meter parabolic dish antenna and broadcast the sounds about 18 trillion miles into deep space. So far, we haven’t gotten a response back…

Humpback Calf Adopts our Boat

Aloha,
Guests aboard our 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala had an interesting experience on Tuesday.  Just as we left the harbor, we found a pod of Spinner Dolphins, which is always fun…but we continued south and found a Humpback calf at the surface. The calf approached the boat and actually started rubbing up against our hulls! It looked like he was scratching some itchy skin on his sides and on his back, and as we got a better and better look at him, we noticed a chunk missing from his dorsal fin, and all sorts of other scratches on his body. Our on-board naturalist Mike had just finished telling everyone about the importance of the relationship between baby and Mom…and when Mom didn’t surface for awhile, we started to get worried. This little calf stayed right alongside the boat for 20, then 30, then 35 minutes…and just when we were all about to cry, thinking the baby had been abandoned (and also about to call the folks at the Hawaii Islands Humpback National Marine Sanctuary to report the situation), Mom surfaced and led our little friend away! A very happy ending to a very interesting whale watch.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  According to research reported by the Keiki Kohola Project, the most common surface behavior observed of calves is “twirling” thru 360 degrees at the surface. These twirls often incorporate pec slaps and waves, and tail slaps and swishes. The researchers theorize all this movement not only helps the calves to improve their coordination, but also helps with the production of the intra-muscular oxygen-storing protein called myoglobin, allowing these calves the ability to stay underwater for increased amounts of time without breathing.

Spy Hops!

Aloha,
We ran 4 whale watch cruises on Monday, but the highlight of the day happened on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise where, according to our onboard naturalist Mike, we saw LOTS of whales. We watched some tail lobbing from about 100 yards away. We also saw a couple of mom/baby pods, and 4 different competitive pods. Mike also reported that on Sunday, guests aboard our Whales and Cocktails Cruise got to see a Humpback spy-hopping more than 20 times. The whale was so close to the boat that everyone aboard could see the whale’s ventral pleats, as s/he rose vertically from the water. And when the whale sounded, we could clearly see the barnacles living on the edge of the his/her flukes This whale spy-hopped repeatedly…so much so that we ended up having to come in late (we can’t move the boat when the whale is less than 100 yards from us)!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  The barnacles called “Coronula diadema” live only on Humpback Whales, and they seem to prefer to live on areas of the whale where the water flow is consistent (chin and fins). Though researchers aren’t sure how the barnacle can even find a whale to live on, there is some speculation that because the barnacles are spawning during the winter in Hawaii, the whales here are swimming in“barnacle larvae soup”. When a whale swims by, those “baby” barnacles chemically sense it, and hop on where ever they can. They use their antennae as“feet’ and walk around the whale till they find a suitable spot (which can take quite awhile…if the barnacle were the size of a person, the whale would be 20 miles long). Once they find a spot they like, they flip over and produce tube-shaped cavities in their shells that actually draw in prongs of growing whale skin, holding their position on the whale for life.

Competition on the Lek

Aloha,
Our weekend of whale watching was windy again…on Friday, it was so windy in fact that the only cruise that went out was a private Whale Watch from 8:00 – 10:00. Guests braving the 35 + knots of wind did see some fun stuff though, including 3 separate pods of cow/calf/escort and breaches from the adults and the calves.
On Saturday and Sunday we were able to run all our cruises but the highlights included sightings of 25 different humpbacks on Saturday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, including 4 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. At one point we watched as one of these babies dove under her mom (nursing maybe?). At the end of this trip, we found a competitve pod of 7 males chasing a female with her baby. This group was really active, head lunging, bubble blowing, jaw clapping, trumpeting…and they brought their chase right by the boat.
On Sunday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 14 different Humpbacks. This trip started with some big tail lobs and pec slaps by a couple of big adults. After that we found a curious Mom/Baby pod who cruised back and forth under us a couple of times. Then we found a competitive pod and got to see some huge peduncle throws, a couple of breaches and some head lunging from them. We went right back out again at 12:30 and found the same Mom/Baby we had seen on the first trip right below Kohala Ranch. Once again, Mom let her baby approach us to get a good look, and they both swam under us and around us a couple of times. After that, we found another competitive pod and got to see some motorboating and head lunges from them. And to top it off, accompanying this pod of Humpbacks, we saw 4 pygmy killer whales (a pretty rare sight for us)!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Researchers note that female Humpbacks in the North Pacific population are seen with their first calf when they’re between 8 and 16 years old (the mean age is 11.8). In the North Atlantic, female Humpbacks give birth for the first time when they’re between 5 and 7 years old.