Category Archives: Dolphin Sightings and Statistics

Lots of Tri-Pods

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Aloha,
We can certainly tell by our weekend of whale watching that it’s the beginning of March! This is the part of the season for us when traditionally, we see the highest proportion of pods consisting of Mom/Baby/Escort, and also when we see lots of competitive pods. We ran a lot of whale watches these past few days, so I’ll just list some of the highlights.
On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw more than two dozen different whales, but we focused our attention on three different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We got to watch some pretty cute acrobatics from a couple of different babies who seemed to think that rolling around on Mom’s rostrum was a good way to spend the morning. We had 4 very close encounters on that trip with different pods…and to top it off, we got to watch a pod of Spinner Dolphins towards the end of our cruise, right outside of the Bay.
On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we started seeing whales before we even got on the boat! Two whales just outside of the bay were breaching and peduncle throwing multiple times while our guests boarded. And once aboard, we found 4 different competitive pods, and we saw breaching, tail lobs and peduncle throws from two of the pods. The other two pods seemed very intent on the chase. We also found two Mom/baby/escort pods.
And on Sunday, guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales started the cruise with a pod of Spinner Dolphins just outside of the bay. We also saw 4 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, a couple of fantastic breaches, and some very energetic tail lobbing and peduncle throws.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:Though measuring the length and weight of a Humpback’s internal organs is not really an exact science, it’s been estimated that the intestines of a fully grown Humpback whale are about 200 feet long (approximately 5 times the length of her body).

Humpback Calf Adopts our Boat

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Aloha,
Guests aboard our 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala had an interesting experience on Tuesday.  Just as we left the harbor, we found a pod of Spinner Dolphins, which is always fun…but we continued south and found a Humpback calf at the surface. The calf approached the boat and actually started rubbing up against our hulls! It looked like he was scratching some itchy skin on his sides and on his back, and as we got a better and better look at him, we noticed a chunk missing from his dorsal fin, and all sorts of other scratches on his body. Our on-board naturalist Mike had just finished telling everyone about the importance of the relationship between baby and Mom…and when Mom didn’t surface for awhile, we started to get worried. This little calf stayed right alongside the boat for 20, then 30, then 35 minutes…and just when we were all about to cry, thinking the baby had been abandoned (and also about to call the folks at the Hawaii Islands Humpback National Marine Sanctuary to report the situation), Mom surfaced and led our little friend away! A very happy ending to a very interesting whale watch.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  According to research reported by the Keiki Kohola Project, the most common surface behavior observed of calves is “twirling” thru 360 degrees at the surface. These twirls often incorporate pec slaps and waves, and tail slaps and swishes. The researchers theorize all this movement not only helps the calves to improve their coordination, but also helps with the production of the intra-muscular oxygen-storing protein called myoglobin, allowing these calves the ability to stay underwater for increased amounts of time without breathing.

Muggings and More

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Aloha,
Friday brought us some heavy winds so we only ran a couple of Whale Watch Charters. On the Breakfast with the Whales, we saw lots of surface activities, but the highlight of the trip was our close encounter with a Mom and her Baby who were curious enough to swim by and check us out. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 15 different Humpbacks including 4 Mom/Baby pods, three of whom were accompanied by an escort. We also saw 3 different species of dolphins – Spinners, Bottlenose, and Spotted.
The winds calmed a bit on Saturday and we had some great sightings. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we stopped counting at 23 whales. The highlight of the trip was watching a competitive pod of 5 whales really charging each other. At one point we all watched as one of the males literally swam right over another male on the surface. We saw peduncle throws, tail lobs, and head lunges from this group too. On the Whales & Cocktails Cruise, both Seasmoke and Manu Iwa were mugged by a very curious whale. First, the whale spent 35 minutes right next to Seasmoke, and then he swam over to Manu Iwa and stayed for another 25 minutes. It was unreal! We also saw head lunges, breaches, tail lobs, and pec slaps but our memories of exactly how many of each of those activities we saw were erased after the muggings! If you’d like to see photos from this incredible cruise, go to the Hawaii Ocean Sports Fan Page on Facebook.
On Sunday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, guests saw 20 whales including 5 Cow/Calf/Escort pods. We saw lots of surface activity too, including 5 breaches, 10 tail lobs, a couple of peduncle throws and lots of pec slaps. At one point we found ourselves surrounded by 4 different Mom/Baby pods..one on each side of the boat, one at the bow, and one at the stern. And on the Whales & Cocktails Cruise, we saw 35 different whales…there was so much surface activity that we couldn’t keep accurate counts! We loved watching a very active baby whale breaching, tail lobbing, and pec slapping right along side his mom who was doing the same activities! We also loved watching a different calf ride along on top of her Mom’s rostrum…and another highlight was watching yet another calf lying on his back, double pec slapping. This was another one of those whale watches that had action every where you looked and every time you looked. I hate to keep using exclamation marks but I can’t figure out a better way to describe what we were seeing this weekend than by doing this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Most Humpbacks are “right-handed”. Researchers looking at abrasions on Humpbacks’jaws found more abrasions on the right jaw than on the left, and observed more“flippering” with the right flipper than with the left, suggesting a definite right-side preference among the Humpback population.

A Surprise Close Encounter

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Aloha,
Wednesday’s Whale Watches started out with a bang! Guests aboard Seasmoke’s Breakfast with the Whales cruise were delighted to find a whale just a couple miles off shore of Anaeho’omalu Bay. We hung out with this whale for quite awhile, as s/he was surfacing pretty frequently. At one point, we were just idling quietly, watching and waiting for the whale to surface again. Everyone on the boat was scanning in different directions, and many of us had our theories about which direction the whale was next likely to pop up when we all got a HUGE surprise as the whale surfaced just 25 feet from the boat! Apparently this whale was as interested at getting a close look at us as we were at getting a look at him. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 8 different Humpbacks…including a competitive pod of 3. At one point, the lead whale of the pod (which is invariably a female) surfaced at the 9:00 position, and then swam under the boat and came up again at the 1:00 position so everyone on board, regardless of which side of the boat they were standing on, got a close encounter! We also saw Spinner Dolphins on this trip…most of them appeared to be resting, but we did see one end-on-end spin!
 
Join us and celebrate the end of 2012 with Hawaii’s Best Whale Watch Tours. Call us at (808)886-6666 ext. 103 or visit HawaiiOceanSports.com to reserve your adventure today.
 
Mahalo,
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:Though the Humpbacks we typically see in Hawaii average between 40 and perhaps 50 feet long, there is anecdotal evidence that the largest Humpback killed by whalers was 88 feet long. This Humpback was taken in the Caribbean.