Aloha,

Our winds are not subsiding, so we only got to run one Whale Watch at 10:00 am on Tuesday. We did see a few Humpbacks — mostly their tails, dorsal fins and spouts. But we also got to see the Humpbacks’ littler cousins when a pod of Spinner Dolphins found us. We always think it’s difficult to estimate the number of dolphins in these Spinner pods, and today’s group was no exception. We know there were a LOT of dolphins though, and we saw both big adults and some small calves. Some of the pod came over to ride our wake, and the rest of them swam alongside. We saw quite a few arculate leaps, some full-on end-over-end spins, lots of twists, and some tail lobs. We even got to hear the dolphins’ distinct whistles as they cruised on our bow.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to research results released by the SPLASH Project (Structure of Populations, Levels of Abundance and Status of Humpback Whales in the North Pacific – a research project involving more than 400 researchers in 10 countries) in 2008, there were approximately 18,000 – 20,000 Humpbacks living in the North Pacific, with the population wintering in Hawaii seeing a 5.5% – 6% annual rate of increase since the early 1990′s