Aloha,

The rain on Tuesday held off just long enough that we could run a Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, and it was a lot of fun. As we headed out of the bay, Captain Baker decided to go with gut instincts and took a turn to the left. It paid off because we found a pair of pretty curious whales who wanted to spend some time with us. We got lots of good views of them (including some wonderful fluke shots when they decided to do a deep dive). Once they were underwater, we decided it might be interesting to drop our hydrophone, so we did. We picked up some great vocalizations – very clear, and very loud (but not loud enough to be from the whales we had just watched dive). Time was running short, so we headed back to the bay, and just before we got there, we ran into the Humpbacks’ smaller Cetacean cousins –  a pod of about 100 Spinner Dolphins.  Some of the dolphins came over to us to ride our bow wake, while others lived up the their common name by jumping and spinning all around us! It was a great finale for a fun Whale Watch.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:We used to think that the whales that arrived on the coast of the Big Island spent their Hawaii-time here with us. Research and close observation of individuals has proved us wrong. While the Humpbacks seem to prefer to spend most of their time on the lee sides of islands and in water less than 600 feet deep, they will travel between the islands (not in any particular direction that we’re aware of)….females who have calves travel less frequently though.