On Wednesday we took guests out on our Signature 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae Harbor on the Alala. We enjoyed beautiful ocean conditions…calm winds, and that unique Hawaiian combo of getting to feel a light rain while cruising under sunny skies.

We didn’t see any Humpbacks, but while we were offshore of Pu’u Kohola (near Spencer Beach Park), we had an opportunity to deploy our hydrophone. We didn’t hear singing…but we could hear some faint “grunts and groans” that definitely were not sounds made by the boat (we could hear those sounds too). Near the shoreline, our microphone is able to pick up sounds from as far as 5 miles, so we know there are whales in the vicinity. At the end of our cruise, while we were just outside of the harbor, one of our guests saw a Humpback’s peduncle (that’s what we call the part from just behind the dorsal fin to the tail). We all got pretty excited, but in the remaining time we had left, this whale chose not to surface again. We had to call this cruise a “fluke”…but we weren’t too disappointed. Since the cruise is guaranteed, we’ve invited everyone to join us again on another Whale Watch Cruise for FREE!

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The first whales to arrive in Hawaii each year from Alaska are females with a yearling, followed by sub-adults (the teenagers of the whale world). The next to arrive are mature resting females (ovaries and mammary glands show no signs of recent activity) followed by mature males, and finally late pregnancy stage females.