Aloha,

On Tuesday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw flukes and  spouts everywhere we looked. We finished the trip with a great close encounter with a Humpback who decided to swing by our boat and check us out. The word of the evening though was “BREACH”! On our Moku Nui Sunset Sail we saw multiple breaches right in front of the boat. We also got to watch a Mom/Baby pod cruise along side us, and we saw a competitive pod charging across the surface. This pod was really bullying each other with lots of peduncle throws, head lunges, and shoving.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: How do Humpbacks keep their cool when swimming through our warm Hawaiian waters?  During prolonged exercise in warm water, excess heat is shed by increasing circulation to a network of capillaries (in Latin they’re called “retia mirabiliia” which translates to “miracle network”) near the surface of the Humpbacks’ flippers, flukes and dorsal fin — the excess heat is shed to the external environment. In fact, many researchers believe that whales lifting their pectoral fins into the air, or resting with their flukes exposed vertically are actually trying to cool off.