Aloha,

We ran lots of Whale Watches this weekend, so here are some of the highlights. On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we were approached by three different Mom/Baby/Escort pods at different times. We also saw something that our on-board naturalist Mike had a difficult time describing. He said that just behind the boat, guests watched a whale do what looked like a “reverse spy-hop”. The whale came vertically up out of the water tail first, till almost half his body was above the surface and held that position for a three count. Mike offered to draw a diagram…but we think you get the idea without the picture!

On Saturday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, we got to see 3 breaches about 500 yards away from us and one just 100 yards away from us! Captain Will estimates we saw 25 different Humpbacks on this cruise, and lots of Mom/Baby/Escort pods.

On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw more than 25 different Humpbacks. Most of them seemed to be kind of tired – just surfacing to breath, but we did see a competitive pod in front of Mauna Lani who exchanged 10 breaches. Underwater, it must have been a different story, because when we deployed the hydrophone we heard a LOT of singing and vocalizing from quite a few whales. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, a Mom/Baby/Escort pod spent a lot of time with us. Baby was really small (and probably very young). We also saw an adult pec slap and tail lob very close by. And to top it all off, on our Sunday Whales and Cocktails, we spent considerable time with another Mom/Baby/Escort pod, but we also saw lots of peduncle throws and pec slaps from a pod of two adults nearby.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Being mammals, Humpbacks have belly buttons – in case you’re wondering, they’re “innies”.