Tag Archives: Close Encounter

Baby Whale Plays with Mom

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Aloha,

Monday brought us some winter weather — well “winter” for Hawaii that is. We were still able to run our Wake up With the Whales cruise on Seasmoke though, and guests who joined us saw some pretty cute stuff. We found 2 different Mom/Baby pods. The first pod came right up to us to check us out while we enjoyed checking them out. The second pod consisted of an active calf who decided to not only breach right near us, but then to roll over on his back, lay on Mom’s rostrum, and slap his little pec fins on the water. Mom didn’t seem bothered at all by his antics.On the way back to the bay, we found a pod of three adults lazily swimming along the surface together. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we also got to watch two different Mom/Baby pods. This time we didn’t see any escorts, but both pods came over to look at us. The second pod surfaced just 10 yards from us!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though no one is really sure how Humpback Whales are able to navigate so accurately through the open ocean to find Hawaii, research conducted on the migratory paths of a few South Atlantic and a few South Pacific Humpbacks between 2003 and 2007 did show that regardless of currents on the surface, storms and obstacles, the humpbacks never deviated more than about 5 degrees from their straight-line migratory paths. Researchers don’t think the whales are relying solely on the earth’s magnetic fields for navigation, since magnetism varies too widely to explain the straight paths the whales swim, and they also don’t think the whales are just using the sun (like many birds do) because the ocean wouldn’t provide an adequate frame of reference. It’s possible the whales rely on both those methods, combined with celestial markers. Or maybe the whales navigate by following the sounds of each other’s voices. Researchers are still working to solve the mystery.

Magic on the Water

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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?

Windy Weather But Great Sightings

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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…).

Magical Cruise with Dolphins and Humpbacks

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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!

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.

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

Thar She Blows Again and Again!

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Aloha,

On Friday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, guests saw 12 different Humpbacks. Almost all of them were in pods of two, and based on the sizes of the spouts, all of them were adults (or at least close to adulthood). It’s kind of amazing to us that we can tell anything about a population by the size of their breath (if you’re as amazed as we are, check out today’s Fact of the Day)…One whale chose to approach us to get a look as he swam by. We also saw splashes from some breaching and peduncle throws in the distance. On Saturday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, we found one Humpback offshore of Puako. This whale was on 13 minute dives, surfacing to take 3 or 4 breaths before slipping below the surface again. We got to see the white markings on his flukes a few times. We also saw another spout in the distance, but ran out of time and weren’t able to run out her way to say “aloha”.And on Sunday, the winds came up, so though we could see the whales out there, it was much more difficult to get to them.
Mahalo,
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Did you know that you can identify the species of whale by the size and shape of it’s spout? Humpbacks create that distinctive 10-15 foot tall pear shaped plume…sperm whales create an angular blow, grey whales create a bushy v shaped blow, and blue whales — the biggest species of whales– typically create a 30 foot tall cone shaped blow.

Still “Whale Soup” in Hawaiian Waters

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Aloha,
The whales were out in force this weekend. On Friday’s afternoon Whale Watch on Seasmoke, guests saw 5 different Humpbacks. At first we just got to see some spouts, but when we got to the area where the spouts were, a lone adult surfaced about 50 yards from us turning out to sea. We thought that was kind of interesting — wondering what he was swimming away from and then a pod of two adult humpbacks surfaced right behind us. We saw dorsal fins, spouts, and flukes from all three of these whales. On our way back to the bay, we found another pod of two and just as I was explaining that we don’t always see a breach on every trip, one of the whales breached not once, but twice! On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we found a pod of 3 – Mom, baby and escort. This pod surfaced several times near us, and while we were watching them, we saw spouts from two more adult whales closer to shore.
Guests on Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise used just one word to describe the trip: “AWESOME”. For almost the entire cruise, we were escorted by two big adult whales who decided to swim directly under us and along side. At one point one of them came between the hulls (we were adrift), and did a fluke dive right in front of the bow. Seasmoke is a pretty big catamaran – 58 feet long and 23 feet wide – but when that whale lifted his flukes right in front of us, we felt really, really small.
On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw a dozen different Humpbacks (which is a lot for this late in the season). We had one very close encounter, and several pretty close encounters with whales who were interested in us. We also got to see one head lunge. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise on Sunday, we saw 6 different Humpbacks, including one sub-adult who breached twice, and another bigger whale who tail lobbed a few times. When we deployed the hydrophone, we heard a Humpback symphony! And actually, three guests on board heard whale sounds after we had already pulled the hydrophone out of the water
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:  According to research conducted by the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, a Humpback’s heart beats an average of 40bpm, but the whales do experience periods of tachycardia and bradycardia during dives.