Our Thursday Whale Watch Cruises were really pretty spectacular. We started the day with the 8:00 Wake up with the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke out of Anaeho’omalu Bay. Captain Baker reports that the whales didn’t need any waking up. Guests saw 6 different pods of two whales…yes, you read that correctly..12 different whales (and this is on December 4th)! The whales were all in the near vicinity of the Hilton Waikoloa Village and Anaeho’omalu so we didn’t even have to travel far. And not only did we get to see the whales, but one pod came right over and “mugged” us, hanging with us for about 5 minutes. If you have access to Facebook, we invite you to watch this short video clip posted by one of this morning’s guests (Mahalo Nui Loa, Diane!)..

On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, Captain Ryan (who was our  naturalist) reports that we saw 2 pods of two whales. The first pod was near the Mauna Lani Resort, and the second pod was off shore a little further. Both pods were surfacing, blowing, and diving, so we got to see some big flukes too.

I’ll send out the next report on Monday…have a great weekend! We hope you get a chance to come out and enjoy one of these early season Whale Watch Cruises with us!

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The Whales “mugging” us are definitely taking a look at us. Though Humpbacks rely on their sense of hearing far more than any other sense, we do know that vision is also important to them. Based on the shape of the Humpbacks’ corneas, they can certainly see us…but, they’re probably a bit farsighted when looking through water and a bit nearsighted when looking through the air. And in case anyone asks you, Humpbacks have beautiful brown eyes. Their eyeballs weigh, on average, 2.16 pounds. Human eyeballs weigh about a quarter of an ounce.