Aloha,

Monday’s wintery weather caused us to cancel all our cruises except for Breakfast with the Whales. The 16 guests who braved the conditions with us were rewarded though, as we started the cruise with a pod of about 100 Spinner Dolphins — many of whom decided it would be fun to surf our bow wake. As we were watching all this activity, a Humpback surfaced right in the middle of the pod. Then we saw some breaching a way’s off, so Captain Baker decided to head out that way. We were surprised when 3 whales surfaced at our stern and made a dive right below us (we could see them as they cruised right under us). And we finished the cruise with even more breaching.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though we’ve mentioned before that only male Humpback Whales “sing”, all Humpbacks make noises and apparently use these sounds to communicate with each other. Researchers have witnessed cooperative feeding behaviors among the Humpbacks apparently “triggered” by sound, and have also witnessed Humpback Cows (moms) apparently ignoring some sounds made by their calves (researchers called these sounds “goo-goo, ga-ga” noises), but responding immediately when the calves made particular squealing noises. So it appears that Mom recognizes her baby’s voice!