Mom’s, Calves, and Escorts

Aloha,
The weather returned to normal on Monday, and the Humpbacks were out in full force. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we were surprised by a calf that wanted to take a look at us. Mom and the Escort also surfaced close by. We got to see another Mom/baby pod on this trip as well as a few tail lobs and a spy hop from another big adult Humpback.
 On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we saw more than 20 different Humpbacks. Most of them were in pods of two, just cruising along the surface. We did see two different Mom/Baby pods and neither of them appeared to be accompanied by an escort. We also saw 3 pectoral slaps from a fairly young whale (not a calf – but this whale had a short “arm”).
We went out again in the afternoon, and this time we saw 10 different whales. We spent some time watching a small Mom and her calf, and were very surprised when Mom did a fluke dive. First of all, females with calves rarely lift their flukes when they dive – that’s the posture Humpbacks use to begin a longer deeper dive, and Mom doesn’t leave her baby near the surface unless she’s close by. The other reason we were surprised to see her flukes is that when she lifted her tail, we realized that she was the SAME whale we had seen a few days ago off of Anaeho’omalu Bay. The right side of her fluke had a chunk missing and it sure appeared to be an old injury from an encounter with an Orca. Since this whale was really small and accompanied by a very small calf we hadn’t seen the last time we saw her, we’re guessing this may be one of her first calves…and that she gave birth very recently. We’ll definitely be on the look out for her the next couple of days.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The most recent (2008) International Whaling Commission estimate of the total world-wide population of Humpbacks is between 112,000 and 180,000.

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