Tag Archives: breach

Breaching in the Rain

Posted on by

Aloha,

We woke up to winter weather on Wednesday. Right before our Wake up With the Whales Cruise began, the clouds were ominous, but the storm hadn’t quite rolled in, so we boarded our guests and headed out to sea. Of course winter being what it is, we didn’t get very far before the rain came in and it felt like we were suddenly and magically in the Pacific Northwest instead of Hawaii. We were about to turn the boat back around and head in when two HUGE humpbacks started breaching just 200 feet from us, over and over and over again. Our guests decided to brave the rain, and we watched this incredible action for more than 30 minutes. Were the whales excited by the rain and wind? We’ll never know, but we did all agree that any discomfort we felt was worth it to get to see what we were seeing. Sadly, we did have to cancel charters for the rest of the day, so we don’t know whether our humpback friends spent all of Wednesday playing in the rain.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: We know that Humpback whales communicate two different ways — by vocalizing, and by using surface-generated signals such as ‘breaching’ or ‘pectoral slapping’. Recently, researchers have found that humpback whales gradually switched from primarily vocal to primarily surface-generated communication in increasing wind speeds and background noise levels. Why would they do that?  The researchers report that surface-generated sounds have energy distributed over a greater frequency range and may be less likely to become confused in periods of high wind-generated noise. Therefore, it may be easier for the whales to communicate to each other by splashing when it’s windy.

Mottled Whale

Posted on by

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.

Spy Hops

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.

Very Different Activities Observed Throughout the Day

Posted on by

Aloha,

Wednesday was our last  9 Whale Watch Charter day this week. What was most interesting is the differences between what we saw on the cruises…especially because we departed from the same locations and had very little time in between cruises. Guests joining us on our first Seasmoke Cruise got to see lots of spouts and flukes from pods of two adult Humpbacks. We also saw a few pectoral slaps, and a few peduncle throws happening from a pod of three whales. As we gazed out to the horizon, we also saw some huge splashes from breaching whales. Just one hour after we returned from that cruise, we departed again, and this time we saw  so many close-up breaches that we actually lost count. We were watching a competitive pod of 5 adult humpbacks for the first hour of the cruise, and these whales came right up to our boat, swimming across our bow, diving and surfacing on all sides of the boat. We also saw a bunch of head lunges and tail lobs, and a couple of double pec slaps. After about an hour of non-stop activity, this pod took a deep dive, and either separated, or swam off fast and far, because we never saw them again (though we did see spouts, flukes, and plenty of other whales). After that incredibly exciting cruise, we went out again two hours later. This time, it took us awhile to even see a spout. But the whales found us, and we ended up watching 6 different pods of two adults, and towards the end of the cruise, got to see a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. To us, it appeared that baby was leading the adults around…since baby kept changing directions, followed by mom and the escort. They came pretty close to our boat, checking us out too. We actually got to watch baby lying on mom’s rostrum, and as mom swam, we got to watch the baby roll right up her head and onto her blowholes!
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers have observed that Humpback calves are very playful, investigating all kinds of objects in their environment (including our boat), interacting with their moms, and even interacting with passing pods of dolphins. But for as many calves as we see in Hawaii during the winter, we never have observed the calves playing with each other. Though we’re not sure why this is, perhaps the new moms won’t allow a calf not her own to approach, because she doesn’t want to feed the wrong one.

Competitive Pod Captivates

Posted on by

Aloha,

For the next three days, there’s a big convention on the island (SAP), so we’re running 9 different Whale Watch Cruises every day. And since it’s still height of the season for the Humpbacks in Hawaii, we’re seeing too much to report in one email…so I’ll just list some highlights from a couple of our trips. On the Alala, guests got to see a Mom/Baby/Escort pod up close. The seas were calm, so we were just idling, and baby kept approaching closer and closer every time he surfaced. Generally, we’ll watch Mom get fed up with that activity and eventually push her baby away, but not today. All three of theses whales came right up along side of the boat and stayed there for quite awhile. We also got to see baby breach several times! On our last cruise of the day on Seasmoke, we saw our first Mom and Baby pod about midway through the cruise, but we spent most of our time watching a competitive pod of 5 whales in a very aggressive chase. These whales didn’t care that we were there as they kept changing directions all around us. We watched one of the big males head lunge with an open mouth right on top of another whale at least a dozen times. We also got to watch lots of shoving at the surface — we could see one of those big guys push his big head right into the side of another whale and shove him aside. The whale in front of the chase (we’re almost positive it was a “she”) expressed her displeasure or excitement or irritation with a couple of pec slaps and peduncle throws…but mostly she just kept changing directions. We finally had to leave the pod to head back to the bay…and on the way back we had a couple more close encounters with a lone humpback, and then with a very small calf and his mom. Baby had a very angled dorsal fin and was pretty light in color so we’re guessing he was pretty young.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A baby whale, called a “calf” looks so small and cute when seen playing with her Mom. But everything is relative…when the calf is born, she can already be 10 to as much as 15 feet long, and she weighs 2000 to 3000 pounds! The calf is about 26 feet long when it’s weaned (at 10-11 months).

Spouting at the Ladder

Posted on by

Aloha,

As usual, a whole weekend’s worth of whale watching provided us with way too much to

Breach

Breach (Mahalo to Helen Turner for this image)

talk about in one email, so I’ll just recap a few of our favorite cruises.

Our weekend started out fantastically with guests seeing the whole gamut of surface activities on Friday’s Wake up with the Whales. Not only did we see 5 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, but we got to see lots of full breaches, pec slaps, tail lobs, and head lunges too! On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, all the action was right in front of the Hilton Waikoloa Village where we found a Mom and her calf. We got to watch a competitive pod form as two males approached Mom and baby. Once these guys got to where Mom and Baby were resting, they got really active — we couldn’t believe our eyes as we watched them smack each other with their pectoral fins and peduncles, and shove each other around with their huge rostrums. On Sunday’s Wake up with the Whales on Alala, we found a Mom, Baby and Escort right outside of the harbor. We enjoyed watching them surface multiple times, but since we didn’t want to bother them, we decided to leave and check out some action a bit further down the coast. This turned out to be another Mom/Baby/Escort pod. This time we got to see baby breach, followed by Mom, followed by the Escort. And right after that, both adults breached again! And finally, on Sunday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise we had two close encounters in the beginning of the cruise by two different whales. After that excitement, we headed out to sea a bit and idled. Two humpbacks spent over an hour RIGHT under the boat, spouting between the trampolines and all around us. We saw a breach and a tail lob 30 yards from us. The whales wouldn’t leave, and finally, Captain Ryan had to roll out the staysail so we could get back. As we started to sail away, one of the whales chased us down and followed us back to the bay.
Mahalo,
Claire

​

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: You may have read about the entangled Humpback whale that was just freed by the Whale Entanglement Response Team off the Maui coastline (if you haven’t, click here )…but did you notice the route taken by the whale since it was first spotted off the Hamakua coast? In the space of a week, this whale circled the Big Island, and then crossed the Alenuihaha Channel to Maui — all while entangled in more than 200 feet of heavy line and crab buoys. Pretty amazing — and we know it’s common for Humpbacks who aren’t all tangled up to swim between the islands too — not in any particular direction we’re aware of. Some travel south to north, and others north to south…much like our human visitors!

Life Cycle of Humpbacks

Posted on by

Aloha,

Researchers think that the gestation period for a Humpback is around 11 months, which means the calves we’re seeing this year were conceived last year…and on Tuesday, we got to see both aspects of the life cycle, Our Tuesday Wake up With the Whales Cruise began with Mom and calf right outside of the bay. They stayed with us for about 15 Baby breachesminutes, and then we saw a competitive pod starting up, so we left our Mom and calf and headed out to see what was going on. There were some really aggressive whales in this pod, banging into each other, head lunging and pec slapping. It was difficult to see if there was a female being chased, or if this was just a group of males fighting amongst each other. We were fortunate enough to watch this pod for over an hour before we had to leave them and return to the bay.On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, a Mom/Calf pod spent some time with us, followed by a different Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Baby breached repeatedly (and adorably). And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we also got to watch two different Mom/Calf pods. The first was accompanied by 2 escorts, and the second pod was accompanied by 3 escorts. There was a lot of competition going on between the males in the second group, which got baby excited. That little guy kept breaching and breaching and breaching just about 50 yards from our idling boat.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Not all whaling activity occurred during the “golden age of whaling” at the beginning of the 19th century. Based on catch records corrected for illegal Soviet whaling, a total of more than 200,000 Humpback Whales were killed in the Southern Hemisphere from 1904 to 1980. Also, Illegal Soviet takes of 25,000 Humpback Whales in two seasons (1959/60 and 1960/61) precipitated a population crash and the closure of land stations in Australia and New Zealand.

 

Babies find us Interesting

Posted on by

Aloha,

We took two boats out for our Tuesday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise.  On Seasmoke, we saw lots of humpbacks surfacing and fluke diving, but spent most of our time with a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Baby surfaced much more frequently than the adults, and at one point, much to our delight, circled our idling boat. On Manu Iwa, we found at least 10 different pods of whales. Most of them were adults, but we did get to see two different Mom/baby pods (both accompanied by escorts). One of these little calves was pretty curious about us and we watched as he kept surfacing closer and closer till Mom finally had enough of it and pushed him away from us. For a grand finale at the end of our charter, a fully grown adult humpback breached just 50 yards from us. We knew he was there, but we sure didn’t know he was going to breach…and that’s why whale watching is so addictive. You just never know what you’re going to see, and even while you’re seeing it, it’s often difficult to believe your eyes.
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Traditionally, the Hawaiian people did not hunt whales. It may be because they didn’t like the taste of the meat, or it may be because the spirit of the whale was so powerful…But if a toothed whale did end up on a beach (whether it died at sea and was blown ashore, or actually beached itself), only the ali’i (royalty) were allowed to possess any part of the whale. Carvings made from a whale’s tooth called “Niho Palaoa” brought mana (roughly defined as a spiritual force”) to the both the carver and the wearer of the pendant.

Peduncles Perplex

Posted on by

Aloha,

We woke up to rain and blustery winds on Thursday, which meant we weren’t able to take our guests on any morning whale watch cruises. We did get to go out for the Whales and Cocktails Cruise though, and it seemed like the humpbacks were happy to see us. We saw spouts in every direction we looked. For awhile, it seemed like all the action must be taking place below the surface because all we saw were whales surfacing, taking a few breaths, and then diving again. But it’s February now — height of the season for whale watching off our coast — so it wasn’t long before we got to see some breaching from a few adult humpbacks. We also saw tail lobs and peduncle throws. We found a couple of different Mom/Baby pods — both accompanied by escorts. And lots of pods of two and three adult Humpbacks charging around on the surface.
Have a great weekend — I’ll send out a recap on Monday!
Claire
Peduncle

​Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: I was at the airport Thursday afternoon, when a guest from one of last week’s Whale Watch cruises who apparently recognized me even though I wasn’t dressed in my Ocean Sports uniform walked over and said, “I just can’t remember…what was that word you used to describe the back of the whale”?  I answered that we call the region between the whales’ flukes and his main body, a “peduncle”…but why? So I looked it up. The word “peduncle” comes from the Latin word “ped” which means foot. It was first used to describe the stalk of a flower, fruit, or tumor. I guess that makes sense…the back part of the whale does sort of look like a stalk, bearing the whale’s wide flukes.

Windy Weather But Great Sightings

Posted on by

It was a windy day on the water on Wednesday, so we weren’t able to run most of our cruises, but guests joining us on our 8:00 Wake Up with the Whales had a great time watching a baby breach. Those calves always look so cute and uncoordinated to us. We also saw another Mom/Baby pod, and 8 or 9 other adult HumpbacksHumpback Blowholes

On our 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae we got to witness a wide variety of behaviors. Just out of the harbor we encountered a sub-adult humpback who was kind of curious about us. This whale spent some time checking us out as we all got a good view of him (or her — we couldn’t tell). This whale was joined by another whale and they must have felt a little bit of animosity towards each other because one of them started peduncle throwing. Later in the cruise we got to see 6 consecutive breaches —  some by Mom, and some by her calf. We also saw lots of spouts and flukes of whales close to the shoreline…and lots more breaching by whales out to sea in the wind.

Aloha
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: An average size adult Humpback has 2 oval shaped blowholes that measure about 9 inches in diameter (on the bigger part of the oval). The whales use them like you use your nostrils, exhaling through both before inhaling. If an average size human had nostril openings in the same proportion to his size as a whale’s blowholes are to the whale’s body size, each human nostril would measure about an inch and a quarter in diameter (I just measured my own, and they’re only about 7/16ths of an inch wide — the things we do for science…).

Double Breach…and One Whale Breaches 8 Times

Posted on by

Aloha,

Have you ever seen a double breach? Lucky guests aboard Tuesday’s Wake Up With the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke got to see this very exciting surface activity about midway through our cruise. We were watching Mom and her baby being chased by two male Humpbacks when all of a sudden Mom and one of the escorts breached simultaneously right next to some kayakers. The splash they created actually hid the kayakers from our view — we could only imagine what they must have been thinking when these big whales erupted out of the water together.After that, baby breached about 4 times, and head lunged a few more times. We also got a couple of very close encounters when Humpbacks decided to surface off our port stern. Our 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala started with a huge breach just after we had left the harbor. When a cruise starts that good, everything else we see just adds to the excitement. We found a very small calf on this cruise, swimming and diving down to Mom…and we also saw some tail lobbing from another adult Humpback. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise out of Kawaihae, we got to see a Cow/Calf/Escort close to the boat, but the grand finale was watching a big adult Humpback breach 8 times!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers off the coast of Brazil have discovered that some marine mammals including Humpbacks may have up to 14 spleens. Among other functions, the spleen stores red blood cells (which store oxygen)…so an extra spleen may help a deep diving animal stay underwater longer. These spleens can contract during a dive, releasing fresh blood with oxygenated red blood cells to keep the whale’s important organs alive and functioning. 14 spleens?! Amazing.