Whale Season off to a Fantastic Start

Aloha,

Sorry I had to ruin the surprise with my earlier email about our first Whale Watch of the 2014/2015 season, but I was just too excited not to share our sighting with you. The Humpbacks we saw on our 8:00 Wake Up with the Whales Cruise first surfaced about 1/2 mile from us and about a mile offshore of the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort. To be completely honest, we were all a little surprised to see that first spout. Though Humpbacks have been spotted numerous times around the islands since that very early sighting off Kauai in August, we know that most of the whales are still on their migratory routes.
Anyway, the two whales we saw stayed with us and each other for at least an hour before we ran out of time and had to head back to the bay. We got to see (and hear) them several times as they surfaced next to each other, spouted a few times and then dove. We also got to see some pretty cool footprints…and at one point as we were travelling away from them, they surfaced about 50 yards behind the boat and actually swam right towards us! We got a good look at the scarring on their sides (some scars obviously from encounters with Cookie Cutter Sharks). We never did get to see the markings on their flukes though.
What a fantastic start to our season!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The smooth round flat spot we see on the water after a whale dives is called the “footprint”. Whalers thought it was caused by oil from the whale’s skin calming the surface of the water, but water samples have proven that theory to be false. When a whale dives (or kicks just below the surface) his flukes break the surface tension of the water and create a vertical wake, forming the circular footprint.

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