Aloha,
Our weekend started out really fun — with Mom Humpback and her very playful calf. We
Baby Breaches!
Mahalo to guest David Cotton for sharing this incredible photo from the March 6th Wake up With the Whales Cruise
found this duo just outside of Anaeho’omalu Bay on Friday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise, and paralleled them for an hour and a half as they traveled north to Honoko’opae Bay (between the Hilton and the Mauna Lani). Baby was very interested in us, swimming around us and under us, and even breaching 5 or 6 times right next to the boat. We never did see Mom breach, but she let her baby explore us to his little heart’s content.
On Saturday’s 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, we also spent lots of time with a very active calf. Baby tail lobbed repetitively, and mom breached right near the boat. By our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails Cruise, the seas had come up a bit and though we were seeing a lot of different spouts, it was more difficult to get to them. Captain Mark found a competitive pod of 5 whales though, and we got to parallel them for quite awhile watching lots of lunges and shoving around. We heard lots of trumpeting from these guys, and a few times, saw their inflated throats as they lifted their heads.
On Sunday’s Whales and Cocktails, we started out with sightings of just the occasional spout and all these whales were pretty far away. Then we noticed 3 spouts together, and headed over to see Mom, baby and escort. We put the boat in idle when we were about 150 yards away from them to see what would happen. Baby decided to come over for a closer look, followed by Mom of course, and the escort. Baby breached multiple times just 10 feet from the boat, and Mom and the escort surfaced right next to us too. We got to see all three multiple times just below the surface on all sides of the boat, and at the surface too. Those three wore out all of us who were onboard as we went from bow to stern and port to starboard following them on the surface. On the way back to the bay we saw another Mom and her baby. They were accompanied by a couple of escorts…but unfortunately, we didn’t have time to stop to watch them.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Before whaling was banned internationally, Humpback whales’ livers were processed for their oil, which contained a lot of vitamin A. A fully grown Humpback has a liver that weighs between 800 and 1400 pounds.