Tag Archives: breach

Video of a Mom and Baby Playing

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Aloha,

We ran two different 8:00 Wake up with the Whales Cruises on Tuesday. Both boats report seeing 10  12 different Humpbacks, and both boats report that the whales were pretty quiet. Guests aboard Seasmoke were accompanied for over an hour by one lone mid-size (sub-adult) Humpback. This guy was surfacing every 5-7 minutes clearly looking at us. We all got good looks at his the bumps on his spine from his vertebrae, and we even got to look down his blowholes! Guests on Manu Iwa experienced a close-encounter too…this one was from an adult Humpback.
Highlights from our 10:00 Whale Watch included Mom and baby breaching…was Mom teaching baby how to do it, or just caught up in the fun? I’ve attached some video of the event  courtesy of our crew extraordinaire, Jason.
Mahalo and enjoy the last day of 2014. I’ll check in again next year!
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: This fact was corrected in our post dated 1/9/2015. Here’s the correct information: Back on New Year’s Eve, I posted a fact about Humpback Whale vertebrae. One of my sources reported that of the 52-54 vertebrae found in a Humpback’s spine, 10 are fused to form the sacrum. Our favorite researcher Chris Gabriele (from the Hawaii Marine Mammal Consortium), who had recently been involved in a project putting a Humpback skeleton together contacted me to say that she didn’t see any fused bones. So she contacted bone articulation expert, Dan DenDanto at Whales and Nails who confirmed her observation. He said that it was rare for any balaenopterid whales to have fused bones except in the cervical region (their necks)…and occasionally at the site of an injury.

Breach!

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Aloha,

We ran a lot of Whale Watch Cruises this weekend — too many to recap all of them, so here are some highlights.Our weekend started off with a lot of action. On our Friday Wake-up With the Whales, just as we were leaving the bay, we saw a huge splash. Of course we kept watching…and got to see a whale breach 15 times in a row — not sure how he mustered the energy to do that! We also saw lots of spouts from nearby Humpbacks, and got some good tail shots, as these whales lifted their flukes to dive. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we got to see spouts from 10 different whales…most were in pods of two. We saw some breaches (but none as close as what we got to see on the first trip).
On Saturday’s Wake up with the Whales we saw about 12 different whales. One of them breached 6 times about 200 yards from us. We also saw a Mom/Calf pair who were resting quietly on the surface for about 5 minutes. And then, out of nowhere, a big adult surfaced right next to the boat, surprising us all.
And on Sunday’s Wake up with the Whales, we saw 8 different Humpbacks (all adults). We got to see a wide variety of surface action too, including pec slaps, peduncle throws, head lunges and even a couple of breaches.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to the experts at NOAA, in 1966 when commercial whaling was finally banned, the Humpback population in the North Pacific was estimated to be fewer than 1400 individuals.

 

Right Place…Right Time

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Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka!

​We had a great morning of whale watching on Wednesday. On our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on  Manu Iwa, Captain Will reports being “in the right place at the right time”. Throughout the cruise, guests saw 10 or 12 whales, but the best action was right next to the boat. We saw 4 full breaches about 100 yards from us, pec slaps, tail lobs and even a few head lunges. These adult Humpbacks were very active…and we even had 2 of them surface 120 yards from us and parallel us as we cruised along.

On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we watched a very relaxed whale surface just 100 yards from us, spout, and then dive. We didn’t see his flukes, so we figured he’d be right back up. The surprise was on us though, because it wasn’t until 9 minutes later that he surfaced again — this time on the other side of the boat…spouted, and disappeared yet again without showing his flukes! We also saw some breaching further down the coast, and a couple of other spouts.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though they look inflexible, a Humpback’s flukes (the wide part of his tail) contain no bones…just cartilage. When the whale is born, the sides of his flukes are curled inwards so he can slide more easily out of mom’s birth canal.

Christmas Humpback

Just How Big are Humpbacks?

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Aloha,

Monday’s Wake Up with the Whales was a lot of fun. We saw 9 different Humpbacks and they were active on the surface. Not only did we get to see pectoral slaps and peduncle throws, but 4 breaches too. Lots of splashing for an early morning cruise! On our 10:00 Cruise, we spent most of our time with a surfacing/diving pair of Humpbacks. They were on 20 minute dives, and not moving much while underwater since they surfaced fairly close to where they dived. It always makes us wonder exactly what they’re doing down there. We kept the boat stationary, and near the end of the cruise, they both surfaced and crossed our bow just 30 feet away. We also saw several other whales in the distance.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: We know Humpbacks are big animals, but it’s not until we have a CLOSE ENCOUNTER that we really appreciate how big they are. But Humpbacks are only the 5th largest of the great whales — Blue whales, Finbacks, Grays, and Right Whales (including Bowheads) are all longer (on average)– and if you want to count the toothed whales in the list, male Sperm Whales are longer too.

Breaching, Head Lunging and Pec Slapping

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Aloha,

Friday started out especially well for guests on our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae. Throughout the cruise, we saw a total of 8 different Humpbacks, but one of them — not fully grown, but not a calf — decided to breach 3 times just 120 yards from the boat. We all got to see those breaches, and a few of us got some great photos (hopefully someone will share with us). We also had a curious whale surface 50 yards in front of the boat while we were idling. After he dove, we sat in the same place for a long time, and lo and behold, the same whale surfaced at our stern. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails, we found ourselves surrounded for awhile by 4 competitive whales. These guys were posturing for each other, trumpeting, pec-slapping, and even breaching. We saw 4 other whales during this cruise too, but we couldn’t take our eyes off the action from our first pod.
The highlight of Saturday’s 10:00 Cruise was a competitive pod of 5 whales. We watched them chase each other around, and saw some great head lunges and fluke dives before two of the group split off, dissolving the competition.
And on Sunday, we ran 4 cruises just for Whale Watching as well as our Snorkel and Sunset Cruises. We saw whales from all of the cruises. Highlights included sightings of 6 different Humpbacks during our Wake up With the Whales Cruise, a very young calf (with folded over dorsal fin) off shore of Hapuna Beach on our 10:00 Cruise, a big competitive pod with breaches and pec slaps on that same cruise, two whales who decided to swim underneath our idling boat on our way to the snorkel sight during our Snorkel Cruise, and sightings of 15 different whales on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise (including two breaches).
Mahalo,
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: We used to think that the whales that arrived on the coast of the Big Island spent their Hawaii-time here with us. Research and close observation of individuals has proven us wrong. While the Humpbacks seem to prefer to spend most of their time on the lee sides of islands and in water less than 600 feet deep, they will travel between the islands (not in any particular direction that we’re aware of)….females who have calves travel less frequently though.

First Competitive Pod, and Bottlenose Dolphins

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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

Breach…and this time, we all saw it!

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Aloha,

Our Wednesday 10:00 Signature Whale Watch allowed us to see two spectacular sights. First, we got to see a very large Humpback, just hanging at the surface for awhile. He  (or she — we weren’t sure) was very recognizable because of the large white racing stripe on his dorsal fin which was about a foot long and maybe a hand’s width wide. This whale spent a considerable time just sort of resting and spouting and finally dove, never to be seen by us again. And then…on the way back to the harbor, we were cruising along looking in all directions when a smaller humpback surfaced off our port bow. Of course we slowed to an idle and watched this guy spout a few times and dive. We figured that would be the last we’d see of him but he surprised us all by doing a full-on breach right in front of us. This whale was totally out of the water…tail and all…and unlike those breaches that happen far from us, everyone was looking in the right direction to see it! On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, Captain Kealohi reports seeing a couple of different pods of spouting whales. These whales also appeared to be relaxing — we didn’t see any aggressive surface activity — but when we lowered our hydrophone, we heard some singing so we know those male humpbacks are arriving.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: All whales, regardless of species, age, or gender make noises. Only Humpback whales sing an organized song…and only male Humpbacks sing. We used to believe that the males only “sing” when they are in the warmer waters where they mate, though now that we’re listening more closely, we have heard the males singing a bit in their colder feeding waters (mostly at the end of feeding season prior to the beginning of the migration). So, is the male Humpback singing a mating song? Researchers have observed that female whales will not approach a singing male, so if this is a mating song, it seems to be a pretty ineffective one.

Windy Weather but Plenty of Action

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Aloha,

We started the week off with plenty of wind…but plenty of whales too. On Monday’s Wake up With the Whales, we saw 10 different Humpbacks. We also got to see a full breach which is always as appreciated as it is unexpected.
And on our 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala we had a pretty quiet first hour, just watching a couple of whales spouting and diving and spouting and diving again. Then we saw some splashing south of the harbor off of Hapuna Beach, so we headed down that way, and though we knew we’d have to fight the wind on the way back  we were hoping we’d be rewarded with some pretty exciting activity. The decision paid off as there were 4 Humpbacks down there, and while we were idling, one popped up off our port bow causing a bunch of us to “ooh” and “ahh”…and if that weren’t exciting enough about 200 yards away from us another whale began tail lobbing, while yet another one started peduncle throwing repeatedly, and (it looked to us), aggressively. Since up until a few years ago December 15th was the traditional start to our Whale Watching Season, we find it remarkable how many Humpbacks are here already!
Mahalo,Peduncle throw
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The order of whales is called “Cetacean”. The order is divided into two sub-orders, based on what’s in the whales’ mouths. Whales with baleen are in the sub-order “Mysticete”, and whales with teeth are in the sub-order “Odonotocete”. Researchers do not agree on the number of species in each sub-order, but the Society for Marine Mammalogy lists 14 species of Baleen Whales, and 72 species of Toothed Whales.

Not a Fluke at All

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Aloha,

Guests on Monday’s Signature Whale Watch got to see 7 different Humpbacks. We spent most of our time with a pod of two adults about 2 miles off Spencer Beach Park. These whales were surfacing and spouting 3 or 4 times before disappearing from our sight for 8 minute dives. One of the pod showed his flukes on each dive, but the other just sort of sank below the surface and then reappeared next to the fluke-diver each time. When we deployed our hydrophone, we all got to hear some pretty clear singing. We estimated the singer was about 3 or 4 miles away from us. And towards the end of our cruise some of us even got to see a breach (the rest of us got to see the splash from the breach).
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: On today’s Whale Watch we saw one whale’s flukes so often that we started thinking about the etymology of the word “fluke”. We know that the triangular blade of an anchor is called a fluke, and since a whale’s tail sort of resembles an anchor, that made sense. But why would we call a weird occurrence a “fluke”? So I looked it up…”Fluke” comes from the German word “flugel” which means wing (that makes sense, because a whale’s tail looks a little like a wing). The phrase “just a fluke” is of unknown origin, but it was first used to describe a lucky shot in billiards. Since there’s a fish also called a “fluke” — it’s a flounder — the phrase might have come about as a pun on “floundering” In other words, if you “make a fluke”, you’re just floundering, and your success is merely due to luck.

Weekend Recap – Lots of Action

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Peduncle ThrowAloha,

We hope you had as nice a weekend as we did! We started out our Aloha Friday with a sighting of 3 Humpbacks about a mile and a half outside of the harbor. At first we thought one of these whales was a calf…but as we approached we were pretty sure we were looking at Mom, her yearling and an escort. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay, we had to search a bit…but it paid off when we found a mom/baby pod. Baby breached 4 times just 400 yards from us. We also saw another big adult wave and slap his pectoral fin twice — this whale also performed two peduncle throws. On both of these cruises we were able to lower our hydrophone and make out some faint singing.
Saturday morning, guests on our Signature 10:00 Whale Watch got to see 6 different Humpbacks. The first two we saw were the most active…we couldn’t tell what was really going on with them, but we did get to see them approach each other “nose” to “nose” (well actually, rostrum to rostrum) on the surface, after which the whale on the left did a very, very small tail lob. Right after that, the whale on the right did a whole peduncle throw. We watched these two chase each other around for a good hour or so before they separated.
And on Sunday’s Wake up with the Whales, we saw 6 different Humpbacks…and on the Snorkel Adventure which departs just 30 minutes after the Whale Watch returns, we not only saw the same 6 whales (we know that because we were able to identify them by their size, location and fluke markings)…but we even got mugged by one juvenile whale.
But of course, Humpbacks can be seen from shore too…here’s the report I received on Sunday afternoon from one of our favorite OS retail crew, Delilah:
“Two whales were spotted today right in front of the Hilton Waikoloa Village resort traveling north. Two of them were splashing, tail flaps, and playing around. The guests (and some employees) at Lagoon Grill were so excited to see this spectacle, so they dropped their lunch and went to get a closer look…YAYYY!!! whales are here. so exciting”!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:  A fully grown Humpback Whale can hold his or her breath for around 45 minutes. Usually, that’s not what we observe in Hawaii though. We’re more likely to witness 10-20 minute breath hold dives, and if the whale is really active, s/he surfaces to breathe a lot more frequently.