Aloha,

Guests aboard our Wednesday Breakfast with the Whales Cruise spent considerable time with a pod of Mom and her baby. They both were pretty active on the surface, so we got to see lots of spouting, dorsal fins, flukes, and a lot of twisting and diving from the little calf. We know the calf nurses often (probably every hour), so we often wonder when he’s diving down, if that’s what’s going on. On the Snorkel Cruise, we got some to see some Humpback action too, as we paralleled a competitive pod for awhile. We’re always amazed at the turbulence a pod of whales can create as they charge across the surface, and this pod was definitely charging. And we finished the day with another Mom/Baby pod on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise. These whales were resting quietly on the surface, just spouting and swimming slowly. When we dropped the hydrophone we heard lots of loud, clear singers.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A Humpback Whale doesn’t reach sexual maturity till it’s about 35 feet long (age 5 or 6 for females, and a little bit later for males). Researchers have observed that most Humpbacks in the North Pacific don’t begin calving successfully till they’re at least 10 years old – the mean average is 11.8 years. Humpbacks in the North Atlantic give birth for the first time between ages 5 and 7.