Baby Whales Steal the Show

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Claire

Aloha,

The weather cleared on Thursday, so we ran all of our cruises. As usual with a busy day, there’s just too much to report for one email, so here’s what we saw on just one of those cruises. On our 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala from Kawaihae, we started the day with a pod of Spinner Dolphins. As soon as those little guys heard the boat, they came right over to play in our bow wake. We got to see some very lively little dolphin calves spinning and jumping…but not to be outdone, the adults in the pod did some incredible twists and twirls too. After we passed the dolphins, we found a competitive pod charging around on the surface. We paralleled this pod for several minutes and they led us to two separate pods of Mom and her baby. Each of these babies was very active. For awhile, we were watching one calf breach repetitively off the port side of the boat, while the other was breaching off the starboard side. We also saw lots of flukes and spouts from other adult Humpbacks in the area.

Have a great weekend — I’ll send out a recap of our weekend sightings on Monday.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: How do Humpbacks keep their cool when swimming through our warm Hawaiian waters? During prolonged exercise in warm water, excess heat is shed by increasing circulation to a network of capillaries (in Latin they’re called “retia mirabiliia” which translates to “miracle network”) near the surface of the Humpbacks’ flippers, flukes and dorsal fin — the excess heat is shed to the external environment. In fact, many researchers believe that whales lifting their pectoral fins into the air, or resting with their flukes exposed vertically are actually trying to cool off.

Mottled Whale

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Claire

Aloha,

On Monday’s Wake up With the Whales Cruise, we spent a lot of time with a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Baby breached right next to the boat, catching all of us off guard.

Mahalo to guest Sharon Van Dyke for this photo!

We also saw a lot of other spouts and tails from cruising adult Humpbacks. And we weren’t even out of the harbor on our 10:00 Signature Whale Watch when a guest yelled “Dolphins! Twelve o’Clock!” We soon found ourselves surrounded by a pod of 100+ very active Spinner Dolphins. We saw lots of babies jumping and spinning along with the adults, and as usual with a pod of Spinners, a bunch of them took turns playing in our bow wake. After watching them for awhile, we turned south towards a couple of Humpback spouts, but before we could go even 200 yards, a sub-adult Humpback surfaced right next to us. This guy was only about 25 feet long and had mottled skin (covered in white spots). We thought we saw the last of him when he took a dive…but he decided to stay with us, paralleling us for more than 40 minutes — always surfacing on our port side, taking 3 breaths and diving again. After watching him for awhile (and trying to determine why his skin was spotted), we stopped to deploy our hydrophone and got to listen to some very clear songs. Finally, on our way in again, we saw spouts and dives from 4 more pods of adult Humpbacks — two pods of two and two pods of 4. And on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we spent the first 45 minutes or so with a competitive pod of 5 whales that were heading north. We saw lots of lunging and heard lots of trumpeting from them. Then, we turned back and spent the rest of the time bouncing between different Mom/baby/escort pods. There sure are a lot of humpbacks around this season!

Mahalo,

Claire

P.S. I’ll be away from a computer this evening, and tomorrow morning..so I won’t be able to send out the report about Tuesday’s activities till later in the day on Wednesday.

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The first whales to leave Hawaii each year are mature females (who are either newly pregnant, or taking a year off), followed by sub adult whales, and then, mature males. The last to leave are new mothers with their calves.

Magic on the Water

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Claire

Aloha,

Our Wednesday Whale Watches were really fun. On our Wake up with the Whales Cruise on Manu Iwa, we got to see 4 double breaches — we’re never really sure how whales can time that so perfectly and it’s astounding to see. Our idling boat was also approached by a couple of big adults who decided to take a good look at our hulls, diving just below us. The water was so calm and flat that we could almost count the tubercles on their pectoral fins as they swam underneath. And our 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala was just magical. Shortly after we left the harbor, we found a Mom with her baby and an escort. According to our on-board naturalist Donna, guests could clearly see baby resting on Mom’s rostrum (her head). They stayed that way for a very long time, until baby rolled away. Then, Donna reported seeing some splashing further down the coast so Captain Kino cruised over to see what was going on. There were 3 adult humpbacks on the surface just rolling around. It wasn’t aggressive…they were showing their flukes, their bellies, and their pec fins. They kept rolling around each other getting closer and closer to our idling boat. Then they decided to dive underneath us, but even then they stayed close enough to the surface for us to see them. After passing underneath us, we had to head back to the harbor where we saw our Mom,baby and escort again…this time accompanied by a pod of Spinner Dolphins! And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, Captain Kealohi reports that guests saw about two dozen different whales…lots of Mom/Baby pods (most accompanied by escorts), and 4 different competitive pods.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers have observed that female Humpbacks don’t associate with each other at all while they’re in Hawaii. This is especially interesting in light of the fact that the females do associate with each other in Alaska — they’ll even feed cooperatively there. Since the females come here just to mate (and calve), we can postulate that female-female interaction must somehow get in the way of successful mating. Maybe groups of females would attract too many competitive males for safe mating to occur….what do you think?

Surrounded by Activity

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Claire

Aloha,

Monday morning brought us calm winds (finally) but a pretty big swell. The whales didn’t seem to mind the water movement though, because we saw and heard a LOT without going very far from shore. On our Wake up with the Whales Cruise on Manu Iwa, we found ourselves surrounded frequently throughout the trip. Every direction we looked, we were seeing spouts and flukes. We got to see 4 different Mom/baby pods — none of them appeared to be accompanied by escorts, and a couple of different other adult humpbacks pec slapping and peduncle throwing. The whale song was really loud and clear when we dropped our hydrophone. If you’d like to hear a snippet, click here.The same thing happened to guests on Seasmoke’s Wake up with the Whales — surrounded by Mom’s and babies! That trip started with an additional treat though — guests got to see a huge pod of spinner dolphins who found the boat to be an object of fun. On our 10:00 Cruise on Alala, we got to watch a pod of Mom/Baby/Escort for almost the whole cruise. They were pretty calm and quiet but the baby did try to approach us several times. At the end of the cruise, the baby woke up a bit, rolling around on the surface and slapping his pectoral fin just a bit. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we got to see a spyhop in the beginning of the cruise, followed by a couple of very active breaching calves (we got to see their mom’s surface, but no signs of any escorts). We also got surprised when an adult humpback decided to breach about 400 yards away from us.

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to researchers, the sleep process for a Humpback is most likely very similar to how their little toothed cousins, the dolphins, sleep. EEG readings from sleeping bottlenose dolphins show that the dolphins shut down half their brains at a time to rest – a process called “uni-hemispheric slow wave sleep”. Mallard ducks and some species of seals sleep this way too. The active half of the brain presumably is monitoring breathing and perhaps scanning the surroundings for predators, while the passive half is resting. Bottlenose dolphins sleep approximately 33% of the day, but stay asleep for only a couple of hours at a time.

Magical Cruise with Dolphins and Humpbacks

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Claire

Aloha,

Wednesday morning’s Wake Up with the Whales on Manu Iwa was a magical cruise. Not only did we see our first whales before we had even left the mooring (spouting just outside of the bay), but as we left the bay, we encountered two other Humpbacks even closer to shore than our first whales. The whole cruise was like that..whale after whale after whale. There really wasn’t a time when we weren’t seeing a dorsal fin, tail, or spout for the entire two hours. When we deployed the hydrophone, we heard lots of singing too. And if that weren’t good enough, Captain Will spotted a pod of about 20 Bottlenose Dolphins (pretty rare for us to see). AND, the dolphins swam over to us, AND several of them spent a good half hour jumping over the whales. It really looked like something you’d see at Sea World when those dolphins were performing perfect arcuate leaps over the whales. We also saw some pec slapping, lots of fluke dives, and were approached within about 30 feet by a baby whale who just had to get a look at us. Mom was pretty relaxed about it, letting baby turn towards us and swim alongside the starboard hull before she came up underneath her calf, lifted him a little with her rostrum, and pushed him gently away from us. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we also saw lots of Humpbacks. They were all pretty quiet, surfacing just to spout and dive, but we did see a few pec slaps. The highlight of this cruise was a toss-up…we got to see Mom/Baby and a HUGE escort pretty close up. We were idling when baby decided to come check us out which was really exciting…but we also got a close-up visit by two big adult humpbacks.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Researchers report that Humpbacks in Alaska can consume a ton of food in a day. Their diet consists mainly of very small fish like herring, capelin, sand lance and krill. Based on the calorie count of herring, a Humpback in Alaska is consuming 1,500,000 calories each day!

Spinners and Humpbacks Swim Together

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Claire

Aloha,

Monday morning brought us some windy conditions at Anaeho’omalu Bay, but guests joining us on Seasmoke’s Wake up With the Whales got to see some pretty fun surface activity. Throughout the two hours, we saw spouts from 10 different whales. The highlight of the cruise was a pod of three that just sort of surfaced out of nowhere erupting into a peduncle throw battle. These whales were on a 7 minute dive pattern and surfaced pretty close to where they dove each time, making us wonder what was going on underwater during all those 7 minute dives. We also saw a few nice fluke dives from a solo sub-adult . On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we spotted Mom and her calf just outside of the harbor. They were moving very slowly north, so we paralleled them until they dove. They surprised all of us when they popped up on the other side of the boat accompanied by an escort. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise out of Anaeho’omalu we saw whales before we even left the bay. We were enjoying watching one whale at the surface when Captain Ryan spotted a huge pod of Spinner Dolphins behind us. As we turned to go take a look, a Humpback surfaced in the middle of the pod. The dolphins stayed with that whale in pretty much the same spot for over an hour and a half, jumping and spinning frequently. We watched the whale surface a lot too and kind of twist around before making a shallow dive. By the end of the cruise, our whale was joined by 4 other whales and the dolphins were STILL there…dolphins and whales together for 2 hours…incredible!

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though Humpbacks come to Hawaii primarily to have babies and make babies, and though researchers have watched them closely here since the early 1970’s there are no documented observations of Humpbacks mating or calving!

First Competitive Pod, and Bottlenose Dolphins

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Claire

Aloha,

I have to begin this update with an add-on from Wednesday. We got to witness our first competitive pod of the season during Wednesday night’s Sunset Cruise on Alala from Kawaihae. Throughout the course of the cruise, we saw about a dozen whales, but it was just outside of the harbor where we saw the wildest action. 5 whales were chasing each other, head lunging, charging, and trumpeting. One of them breached not one, not two, but three times just 50 feet from the boat! Un-bee-leiv-able!

We started out our Thursday with our Wake up With the Whales Cruise. Captain Jeff Baker reports an outstanding adventure..with pec slaps, a couple of breaches and even a couple of curious whales who swam right underneath us to take a look at us. On the 10:00 Cruise we got to see a mother and a calf (only the second calf we’ve seen this season). Baby was pretty curious about us, and when we stopped the boat, Mom let him swing by to take a good look at us. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we spent the 1st hour cruising around, but the second hour made up for it when we found two Humpbacks offshore of the Mauna Lani Resort area. These whales were surrounded by a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins. And the Bottlenose Dolphins were acting like Spinners – jumping, leaping and flipping. The whales didn’t seem nearly as interested or excited by the dolphins as we were.

Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the weekend recap on Monday!

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: At birth, a Humpback whale calf weighs between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds which is between 3% and 4% of his Mom’s weight. Interestingly, at birth, human babies are proportionally larger, averaging 4%-5% of their Mom’s weight

Humpback Population Growing

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Claire

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

Spinners and Humpbacks Interact

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Claire

Aloha,

Guests aboard Tuesday’s 10:00 Whale Watch got to see a wide variety of Humpback behaviors. The cruise stared with a visit by a Mom/Baby/Escort pod who stayed about 200 yards away from us. We enjoyed watching them, but our attention was diverted by some other whales who decided it was time to start a breaching contest. There were 5 of these whales…and they also did some full-on pec slaps and head lunges. After this pod disassociated, we saw some small splashes up near Kohala Estates, so we headed that way and found a big pod of dolphins surrounding a pod of two Humpbacks. Often it looks to us that the Humpbacks want nothing to do with the dolphins, but these two pods stuck together for at least 30 minutes (we had to leave before they separated). And just as we turned the boat to head back to the harbor, one of the Humpbacks breached. Captain Will, who never is speechless, found it difficult to describe his excitement! On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we didn’t have to travel far. We saw lots of pods of Mom/Baby/Escort between the Hilton and the Marriott. One of these pods came to check us out too. We also saw a big breach a bit further away. In total we saw 20 different whales during this cruise, and we only traveled about a mile!

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: All mammals have hair. Humpback Whales are mammals… so where is their hair? Humpbacks have rows of bumps on their chins that we call “tubercles”. Out of each one, sticks a hair that’s about 1/2 inch long that we call a “vibrissa”. Because there’s a nerve ending underneath each hair, and blood flow to the nerve, we know the whales use these hairs to sense something…but we’re not sure what they’re sensing. Quite likely, they use their hairs like cats use their whiskers- for proprioception.

Weekend Whale Recap

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Claire

Aloha,

On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise we got to see some interspecies interaction. Shortly after exiting Anaeho’omalu Bay, we saw a lot of splashing just south of us. It turned out that a competitive pod of 6 whales were creating most of the splashes – but right in the middle of all those whales was a pod of Spinner Dolphins. The whales were really active on the surface, tail lobbing, head lunging, pec slapping and peduncle throwing. The dolphins were doing their typical jumps and spins. When they heard us, some of the dolphins left the whales to surf our bow wake (giving us a great view of their swimming skills). We stayed with this mélange for most of the cruise. Towards the end, two of the whales actually broke away from the competition and made a b-line for us, surfacing at our bow and mugging us for awhile. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw a LOT of breaching in the distance, but were delighted when a Mom/Baby pod decided to come over to check us out.

On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales we saw spouts from lots of different whales, but our on-board naturalist Gary reports that it wasn’t till the end of the trip that we saw two very close breaches, causing all of us (guests and crew) to “lose our minds”! On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 6 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. When we stopped the boat to deploy the hydrophone we heard some very clear and loud sounds so we knew there were a few submerged whales close by. At the end of this cruise, we were surrounded by 6 or 7 (Captain Will thinks it was 6, but our naturalist Brooke counted 7) very big whales. The water was calm and crystal clear so we could see those beautiful turquoise reflections from their white pectoral fins as they swam along side of us.

On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we were lucky enough to witness the formation of a competitive pod consisting of 8 whales. On the 10:00 Cruise, we were approached by a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. We saw more than 20 whales during that cruise, and at least 8 breaches (sometimes it’s difficult to keep track). And finally, on Sunday’s Whales and Cocktails we got to watch a calf practice his breaching. He must have thought all the encouragement coming from our boat was interesting, so he came over to check us out before scurrying off to catch up to Mom.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: In the early part of the 19^th century, whales were hunted for more than just their blubber (which was used primarily as lamp oil). The meat was used mainly for fertilizer, the baleen was used for umbrella and corset stays, and their organs were processed to extract vitamins.

Big Island Whale Watching

Hawaii Humpback Whale and Spinner Dolphin Sightings and Statistics from Ocean Sports Whale Watch Cruises.

Category Archives: Dolphin Sightings and Statistics

Baby Whales Steal the Show

Mottled Whale

Magic on the Water

Surrounded by Activity

Magical Cruise with Dolphins and Humpbacks

Spinners and Humpbacks Swim Together

First Competitive Pod, and Bottlenose Dolphins

Humpback Population Growing

Spinners and Humpbacks Interact

Weekend Whale Recap