Aloha,
What a GREAT first week of whale watching we’ve had!
Guests aboard each of our whale watches this weekend were fortunate to not only see Humpbacks, but to see very young calves! On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw a cow-calf pair, and we were delighted when we got to watch the baby do a little breach. We also got to see the smaller cetacean cousins – and not just the Spinner Dolphins we often see, but Bottlenose Dolphins too! On Friday’s Whales & Cocktails, we found a Mom and her baby about 2 miles south of Anaeho’omalu Bay. Mom was HUGE, and her calf was really small. Since we know that bigger females generally produce a bigger calf, we surmised this was a very young newborn. We stayed with them for awhile, and just as we turned the boat to head back to the bay, both Mom and baby breached simultaneously (our first double breach of the season). Mom then breached twice more as we bid her an Aloha for the evening.
Saturday and Sunday brought us more of the same…on each of our cruises, a Mom/Baby pair found our boat. On Saturday’s 10:00 Whale Watch we also got to see a super pod of more than 250 Spinner Dolphins. and on Sunday’s 10:00 Whale Watch we spent most of our time with a Mom and her baby but also saw a breach from a big whale in the distance (we know it was a big whale because it was a HUGE splash), and two other sub-adult whales near our Mom/Baby pod. On Sunday’s Whales and Cocktails, another Mom/Baby pair found our boat. We weren’t sure if baby was excited by the find, or just burning off some excess energy, but we got to see more than 35 lunges/breaches from this little guy!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:The order of whales is called “Cetacean”. The order is divided into two sub-orders, based on what’s in the whales’ mouths. Whales with baleen are in the sub-order “Mysticete”, and whales with teeth are in the sub-order “Odonotocete”. Researchers do not agree on the number of species in each sub-order, but the Society for Marine Mammalogy lists 14 species of Baleen Whales (including our Humpbacks), and 72 species of Toothed Whales (including both Spinner Dolphins and Bottlenose Dolphins).