Tag Archives: Close Encounter

Thirsty? Humpbacks survive without drinking.

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Aloha,
It’s difficult to believe that there are only two weeks left to this spectacular 2013/2014 Humpback Whale Watch Season. On Monday’s Breakfast with the Whales, the ocean was pretty quiet. We did see a few spouts from some big Humpbacks, and a few dorsal fins and tails. By the afternoon though, all the whales seemed to wake up. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw a lot of spouts, a lot of flukes and a lot of splashes from surface activity occurring further out than we were. We even had a close encounter with a lone whale who may have thought we were an interesting diversion. When we deployed our hydrophones, we were heard a lot of loud and clear songs amidst the background chorus. For this late in the season, we’re surprised by how many Humpbacks are still hanging around Hawaii.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: What does a Humpback whale drink? We know the Humpback doesn’t sip on ocean water – he can’t because he’s a mammal and the salinity of his tissues is less than that of the ocean (so, like us, if he drank salt water, he’d dehydrate and die). We also know there’s no fresh water to drink from in the ocean. When the whale is feeding, we know he gets liquid from the tissues of the fish he’s digesting…and we know calves get liquid from their mother’s milk. But how does the Humpback survive through the breeding season when he’s not feeding? It turns out that one of the main by-products of fat metabolism is the production of water. Humpbacks burn a lot of fat during the breeding season and because they are extremely efficient users of the water they produce, they can survive. They don’t have tear ducts, sweat glands or salivary glands…and they have incredibly efficient kidneys which concentrate salt in their urine.

Humpbacks Look for Attention

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Aloha,
Guests aboard our Wednesday Whale Watches did see a lot of Humpbacks. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw at least 20 different Humpbacks, but according to our on-board naturalist Captain Mike, they were all pretty mellow. Just after we left the harbor, a pod of Spinner Dolphins found our boat, and as usual, seemed to think we were an interesting object to play with. We had lots of bow-surfing, and lots of jumps and spins all around us from the dolphins. After they left, we were approached by a couple of big whales, who surfaced about  20 yards from us– followed by a close encounter with a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. If that weren’t exciting enough, we saw a couple of total breaches just 300 yards away. As we cruised back to the harbor, we saw lots more flukes and spouts from various whales who were cruising the coastline. On the 10:00 Cruise, we spent our time with two different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. Both babies were kind of restless, rolling around a lot on the surface. And on our Sunset Cruise, we were visited by a lone (maybe lonely?) young adult whale. This guy came right up to the boat and spent some time hanging out with us.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A Humpback whale’s trachea and esophagus are totally separate tubes (unlike ours which meet up in the back of our mouths)…but that also means that a Humpback can only breathe thru her blowholes and not thru her mouth. So how does a Humpback blow a small stream of bubbles from her mouth? Research suggests that a Humpback can move her epiglottis against her soft palate, and channel air thru her larynx to her mouth.

Humpback Calf Checks Us Out

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Aloha,
Highlights from Tuesday’s Whale Watch Cruises include sightings of two different Mom/Baby pods on our 10:00 Cruise. Neither of these pods were accompanied by an escort (or if one was around, he didn’t surface). The weather was calm enough that Captain Will could turn off the engines, so once we spotted the Mom/Baby pods, we were able to just drift. Apparently, our lack of movement was not threatening to the whales, because one of the calves came right over to us to inspect the boat. Mom was about 35 feet long (so she was a young mother), and her calf was really little with a very bent dorsal fin (indicating a recent birth). We also got to see a breach from a big adult about 800 yards from us, and as we cruised back to the harbor, we watched a couple of other adult Humpbacks cruising calmly along in our direction.
Mahalo,
Claire
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.

Dolphins surround a Whale

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Aloha,
Monday’s wintery weather caused us to cancel all our cruises except for Breakfast with the Whales. The 16 guests who braved the conditions with us were rewarded though, as we started the cruise with a pod of about 100 Spinner Dolphins — many of whom decided it would be fun to surf our bow wake. As we were watching all this activity, a Humpback surfaced right in the middle of the pod. Then we saw some breaching a way’s off, so Captain Baker decided to head out that way. We were surprised when 3 whales surfaced at our stern and made a dive right below us (we could see them as they cruised right under us). And we finished the cruise with even more breaching.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though we’ve mentioned before that only male Humpback Whales “sing”, all Humpbacks make noises and apparently use these sounds to communicate with each other. Researchers have witnessed cooperative feeding behaviors among the Humpbacks apparently “triggered” by sound, and have also witnessed Humpback Cows (moms) apparently ignoring some sounds made by their calves (researchers called these sounds “goo-goo, ga-ga” noises), but responding immediately when the calves made particular squealing noises. So it appears that Mom recognizes her baby’s voice!

Massive Humpback Tongues

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Aloha,
There was lots of great activity to see this past weekend. On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, guests were delighted to watch a Mom/Baby pair. Baby was busily breaching repetitively, while Mom stayed just below. We also saw some great tail lobs and pec slaps from a couple of nearby adults. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we got to see a VERY competitive pod chasing across the ocean. We saw lots of chin slaps and quick changes of direction and got quite the surprise when they all surfaced next to us, surrounding us. They spent almost 10 minutes using our boat, and all of us humans got quite the workout trying to follow them as they surfaced on opposite sides of the boat over and over again. On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we loved watching a Humpback tail lob 30+ times right in front of the boat. On Saturday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, Captain Baker reports watching 2 competitive pods, but the highlight of that cruise was the Mom/Baby/Escort pod that chose to stay with us for 45 minutes. On Sunday’s 10:00 Cruise, two whales spent considerable time right next to our boat. On our 12:30 Cruise we got to watch baby whale breach 36 times (we counted) right in front of the boat. Mom cruised right alongside her calf. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise we paralleled a very active competitive pod as they headed south. We saw lots of whale aggression – head lunges, chin slaps, and lots of shoving around.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales have massive tongues. An 80,000 pound Humpback has a two-ton tongue!  Taste buds appear to be atrophied…and they are unable to protrude their tongues from their mouths.

Quiet Humpbacks on Monday

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Aloha,
Our Monday morning Humpbacks were a quiet bunch of whales. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw a LOT of whales – all in pods of two, and interesting, all of them were adults (no calves). All these whales were pretty calm, so we saw a lot of spouts, a lot of dorsal fins, and a lot of flukes. At the end of the cruise, one whale did perform a peduncle throw (which researchers believe is a significant act of communication – see below).On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw very similar activity — lots of pods of two who were just spouting at the surface before diving again. We did get to see one very identifiable whale who we watched for awhile. This whale had a chunk gone from his fluke (so he was easy to keep track of). Towards the end of the cruise, this particular Humpback must have gotten curious about all the shouts of encouragement coming from our boat as he surfaced close-by to check us out.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Why would a whale waste the energy to throw the back half of his or her body out of the water in a Peduncle Throw (sometimes repetitively)?? Since the whales aren’t telling, all we can do is try to interpret their behavior in terms of what else is going on in their lives at that moment. We know that Humpbacks very rarely eat while they’re in Hawaii, and since a Peduncle Throw is a huge expenditure of energy (if you don’t believe me, try it yourself next time you’re in the ocean), it’s got to be important to the whale. Throwing half of yourself out of the water results in a huge splash and might be a way to communicate location, health, excitement, aggression or irritation to near-by whales. Especially if the near-by whale happens to be so near that he gets landed upon!

Tail Lobbing from Excitement

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Aloha,
Patience paid off for guests aboard our 10:00 Whale Watch on Wednesday. First of all, there were so many whales to watch that we had to choose where to go…and then when we chose a direction, the whales seemed to choose our boat as an object of interest. A pod of 5 humpbacks approached us, and we watched as one of them breached and then, as our onboard naturalist Brooke put it, “tail lobbed like CRAZY”. That must have prompted some excitement in the other whales (it sure got us excited), because one started pec slapping, and then two other whales surfaced right next to us multiple times – there came up so close that we could recognize them. We also watched multiple breaches in the near-by distance (not from our competitive pod) and then got to see a coalition of 5 other whales form. We thought this might turn into another competition, but we had to return to the bay before anything materialized.
For the best Whale Watch Cruises in Hawaii, Call Ocean Sports – (808)886-6666 ext. 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Biopsy samples taken from South Pacific Humpbacks show a ratio of 2.4 males for every female on the breeding grounds. A similar ratio has been observed in Hawaii. This suggests either: 1). female Humpbacks can afford to be choosy with their mating partner; or; 2). female Humpbacks are overwhelmed by aggressive males and bullied into mating.

Breaches, Close Encounters and Maybe some Tutoring?

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Aloha,
After a weekend of very challenging weather, the ocean finally calmed down on Sunday and we had some great Humpback encounters! On our Breakfast with the Whales cruise, within minutes of leaving the bay we saw a breaching Humpback. As we cruised over to investigate, we all got to see multiple breaches from this whale. And then, much to our surprise two whales surfaced very close to us. We absolutely love it when we can see their white pec fins reflecting as turquoise when they’re just below the surface.
On our 10:00 Cruise, the same whales chose to come and investigate us further, surfacing and diving all around us. We even got to watch one whale swim right underneath us between the hulls! And if that weren’t exciting enough – we got to watch a Mom/Baby pod. Baby was breaching a lot, and Mom was breaching too – we’re never really sure if she’s teaching her baby how to breach or if she’s just excited (or slightly irritated) by all of baby’s activities. We also saw multiple pectoral slaps from another whale, and lots of flukes. There were whales pretty much every direction we looked!
Mahalo,
Claire
Join Ocean Sports for Hawaii’s Best Whale Watch Cruises. Call us at (808)886-6666 ext. 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com today!
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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

What…No Song???

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Aloha,

We had a nice day of Whale Watching on Monday. We ran 3 different cruises but on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had 3 close encounters with curious Humpbacks, and saw lots of Mom/Baby/Escort pods, some breaches and tail lobs fairly close by, and lots of surface activities creating big splashes within a mile or so of us. On this cruise, we deployed the hydrophone and heard something weird…no song! The reason we think this is strange is that generally, this time of year, the male Humpbacks in Hawaii are in a highly competitive state battling for access to the remaining receptive females. Since recent research on the meaning of the song in the Humpback culture seems to support the idea that it singing is a way for the males to sort out social status and relationships, the fact that we didn’t hear it during this crucial part of mating season really is odd. Of course, it could have just been a coincidence that the one time we had the hydrophone in the water, the males in the vicinity were too busy charging around on the surface to sing. We’ll drop the hydrophone again today and see if this was just a fluke!

Mahalo, Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The smooth round flat spot we see on the water after a whale dives is called the “footprint”. Whalers thought it was caused by oil from the whale’s skin calming the surface of the water, but water samples have proven that theory to be false. When a whale dives (or kicks just below the surface) his flukes break the surface tension of the water and create a vertical wake, forming the footprint.