Tag Archives: competitive pod

Mugged and Loving It!

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Aloha,
We had an outstanding time on our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on Thursday. We were barely outside of the bay when we found a very active competitive pod of 5 whales. These humpbacks stayed with us for over an hour, pec slapping, head lunging and peduncle throwing all around us. That was really fun to watch, but then the pod decided to dive underneath us. We couldn’t believe our luck when we got our first glimpse of them below the boat…but it got better. These whales must have found us a good diversion (or maybe they were using us in ways we don’t quite understand) because they mugged us for more than 20 minutes. Eventually they surfaced far enough away that we could maneuver away and head back to the bay. On the way back, a Mom/Baby pod surfaced just over 100 yards from us. Classic.By the afternoon, the action had calmed down quite a bit but we saw more than 20 humpbacks on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise including 3 Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We got some good fluke sightings too.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send a recap of the weBreach 2-12ekend’s events on Monday.
Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day…just in time for Valentine’s Day! A Humpback Whale has a big heart. An 80,000 pound whale’s heart averages just over 400 pounds, and according to measurements made by the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, beats an average of somewhere between 10 and 30 times per minute.

Whale Fight Enthralls

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Aloha,

We had a fun weekend despite some periods with less than calm seas. As usual, I won’t recap every cruise we ran since it would make this email too long…but there were Humpbacks everywhere we looked during Friday’s Wake Up with the Whales on Seasmoke. Captain Baker reports seeing 5 breaches, and LOTS of peduncle throws, tail lobs and pec slaps. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails, we found ourselves surrounded by a competitive pod. The water was pretty rough, but we were enthralled by all the action. We got to see these whales bang into each other, hit each other with their flukes, peduncle throw right on top of each other, and even pec slap each other. We’re normally not violent people, but watching all of this was so exciting.
On Sunday’s 12;30 Cruise from Kawaihae,we saw Humpbacks in all directions, including a very active competitive pod, and a younger whale who breached and then head lunged 5 times in a row On our Whales & Cocktails Cruise, Mom and baby were waiting for us at the mouth of the bay. And later in the cruise, we were mugged for more than 20 minutes by two adult Humpbacks who hung out right underneath the stern!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Those lines we see under the Humpback’s mouth are actually pleats that allow for the expansion of her mouth when she feeds. This expansion, combined with her ability to flex her jaws, allows her to hold up to 15,000 gallons of sea water in her mouth at one time — that’s the equivalent of 160,000 cans of Diet Pepsi (or Budweiser) in every gulp — of course, she doesn’t swallow the water she gulps…just the unlucky fish that had been swimming in it.

Delicious, Nutritious Humpback Whale Milk

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Aloha,

We started out our Wednesday with some excellent sightings on both Manu Iwa and Seasmoke for our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise. On Manu Iwa, we saw more than 20 Humpbacks within a mile from us, but many of them were much closer. We got to see a Mom and her baby unaccompanied by an escort. Baby breached a few times (probably burning off some of the energy he gains from drinking all that milk). We also saw a few HUGE (45 foot plus) whales — one of whom surfaced within 20 feet of us while we were idling with the hydrophone in the water. And speaking of the hydrophone — we heard a whole symphony when we deployed it today. While all this was going on, we also saw peduncle throws, and lots of pectoral slaps. Since Seasmoke departed at the same time from the same location, we decided to look for our “own” whales, and boy, did we find them! We watched a calf and his Mom for awhile, before another whale surfaced less than 100 feet from us. We actually didn’t know which way to look for a lot of the charter since there were whales everywhere! We saw lots of pec slaps, breaches, and peduncle throws, and also heard some pretty clear singing when we deployed our hydrophone.
On our 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, we found a Mom/Calf pod just north of the harbor. We watched them for awhile and got to see baby breach before we headed off to watch some of the other bigger whales we were seeing out a bit further. We came across a competitive pod of 5 whales who were doing their usual competitive aggressive behaviors — head lunging, peduncle throwing, and bubble blowing. At one point, they all passed within about 50 feet of our idling boat. On the way back to the harbor, we found our Mom and baby again. We stopped to watch baby breach 8 more times…but had to head back to the dock. As we left (which it was just killing us to do, but we had to get back), we watched baby continuing to breach over and over and over again.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Being mammals, Humpback Moms feed their calves milk. But Humpback milk isn’t just any old milk — it’s extremely rich with a fat content of approximately 50%! Human milk contains only about 4.5% fat. Supposedly, Humpback milk tastes like “sweetened cod liver oil” …but I don’t know that from experience!

Babies!

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Aloha,

On Monday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise out of Anaeho’omalu Bay, guests saw more than 20 different Humpbacks. A lot of the activity was between 1/2 of a mile to 1 mile away. We did find a Mom/Baby/Escort pod who chose to stay about 120 yards from us for quite awhile.. Baby was mostly hanging out on the surface, spouting and then diving down to mom. And as usual, both adults were surfacing much less frequently than the calf. Mom didn’t seem to be bothered by the presence of the escort — at least she didn’t do anything aggressive on the surface to indicate displeasure. Oh, and our onboard naturalist Jason reports that the boat was followed by a shark for awhile just outside of Anaeho’omalu Bay. Jason didn’t report the shark’s species though. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, upon leaving the bay, we spotted a small spout off the Hilton Waikoloa Village so headed that way. When we got there, we could see that baby was accompanied by Mom and an Escort but noticed a few other big whales around. These others must have spotted Mom too, because they began to give chase. Mom and baby both tail lobbed a few times and after diving, surfaced fairly close to us. The two newcomers to the pod must have gotten the message because they disappeared, and Mom, baby and the original escort headed off together.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales play host to all kinds of other animals. Besides the barnacles we often see on the Humpbacks’ flukes and other skin surfaces, the whales can also carry tape worms, lung worms, sinus flukes, and whale lice (which are related to skeleton shrimp) among others. Not all of these parasites actually harm the whale (which means that technically, they can’t really all be considered “parasites”). In fact, the barnacles might actually benefit the male Humpbacks who appear to use the sharp edges of the shells (perhaps inadvertently) as weapons during competitive battles.

Intense Sightings All Weekend

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Aloha,

The whales were everywhere this weekend, and we ran a lot of different cruises, so I’ll just recap highlights from a few of them. On Friday’s10:00 Whale Watch, Captain Baker reports seeing a couple of pods of 3 whales harassing each other for the duration of the cruise which provided lots of surface action to watch. Guests also saw one whale do a complete breach just 120 yards from the boat. This guy was totally out of the water, and everyone got to see it (which is kind of unusual; it’s much more common that most of us are looking a different direction until we hear the shouts from the lucky people who see the whale’s rostrum exit the water)! And on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise we saw lots of spouting and lots of fluking. We also got to see 2 lazy breaches from a whale about 200 yards away from us. He only got half his body out of the water, but he did land on his back both times.
On Saturday’s 10:00 cruise from Kawaihae, we started out with a single whale who breached 4 times in a row, and then did 7 peduncle throws — which certainly got our attention. But after that expenditure of energy, he just swam down the coast spouting and diving. Then we found a pod of Mom/Baby/Escort offshore of the Mauna Kea Resort. We watched the interaction between the 3 of them for the rest of our cruise.
On Sunday’s Wake up With the Whales, we hardly got a break from the action the whole trip. Not only did we see every surface activity in the book, but we had a whale breach not more than 100 feet from us, and at one point two whales surfaced just in front of our idling boat while one whale was tail lobbing right at our stern. On the 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, the whales were eerily quiet — until the last 30 minutes when a sub-adult started doing peduncle throw after peduncle throw. Some of us counted 15 — some of us counted 17. By our 3:00 departure for the Whale & Cocktails Cruise, it had gotten kind of windy,and the Humpbacks were reflecting that energy. We watched at least 6 pods of two whales, plus a few competitive pods — and according to Captain Mark, saw lots of tail lobs, peduncle throws, head lunges and breaches from these pods.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A Humpback Whale doesn’t reach sexual maturity till it’s about 35 feet long (age 5 or 6 for females, and a little bit later for males). Researchers have observed that most Humpbacks in the North Pacific don’t begin calving successfully till they’re at least 10 years old – the mean average is 11.8 years. In the North Atlantic, Humpbacks generally give birth for the first time between ages 5 and 7.Baby Breaches

Baby Breaches Too

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Aloha,

On Wednesday’s Wake up With the Whales, we got to see a competitive pod of 5 whales charging around on the surface. We saw a few head lunges from this pod and heard lots of heavy breathing. We also saw some breaches from different Humpbacks a bit further out. On our 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae we got to see two different cow/calf pods. We haven’t seen very many calves yet this year, so these whales were a welcome site. And what was even more welcome was when baby did a full breach right next to our idling boat…followed by a full breach from Mom! You should have heard the yells of excitement coming from the boat…incredible. We also got a chance to deploy the hyrdophone and were able to hear lots of singing, but one whale’s voice really stood out – this guy must have been really close by. And finally, on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had to have seen more than 20 different whales, and boy were they active. We watched whales breaching in all directions, and some of them were just 200 yards from the boat. We also saw some pec slapping…but it was the breaches that had us yelling for more! A lot of these whales were really big adults, but we did see a Mom/Baby pod, and even baby got in on all the excitement doing a breach of his own.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The gestation period for a Humpback whale is about 11 months, which means the calves we’re seeing this year were conceived last winter. We can only estimate the gestation period because oddly, researchers have never observed the same female mating and then giving birth (in fact, there has never been documented observation of any humpback copulation or calving at all)!

Object of interest

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Aloha,

As is par for the course in the middle of January, we saw lots of Humpbacks all day on Tuesday. On the Wake Up with the Whales Cruise, the highlights included some pretty close-by pec slaps from one whale, lots of tail lobs from some other Humpbacks, and 4 different breaches. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we found ourselves the object of interest for a competitive pod of 6 whales. We assume these whales are much more interested in each other than they are in us, but even though we stopped the boat, the pod swam to us and spent more than 30 minutes right around us before swimming off together. If there was a female in the pod (and of course, we couldn’t determine the whales’ genders for sure), was she using our boat as an obstacle between herself and those males? It sure looked like that to us!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: When we watch a surface active competitive pod of whales, we assume it is comprised of one female either leading or being chased by a group of males. It often appears that every male is competing with every other male for access to the female. Recently researchers have observed that male humpbacks may form coalitions, working together to corral the female so that one may have easier access to her.

Competition and Corrected Sacral Information

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Aloha,

January 8th was a good day to be on the water. On our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke, we started out by seeing 6 breeches from one whale just as we were leaving the bay. We also had a small competitive pod hang right around us for 45 minutes. This group was really aggressive with each other — we saw lots of lunges, peduncle throws and tail lobs. On Manu Iwa, guests saw a dozen different whales. There was also a lot of breaching, pec slapping and peduncle throwing going on with a competitive pod that hung around the boat for almost the whole cruise. Most of the time these whales were interacting with each other about 200 yards from us. We also saw splashes from lots of other whales who were breaching a little further away.
Have a great weekend! I’ll send out our Humpback Weekend Recap on Monday.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: 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.

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

Baleen Revisited

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Aloha,
I hope everyone had a good week!
As the winds diminished on Monday, we had some great Whale Watch Cruises. On our Breakfast with the Whales, we saw multiple Mom/Baby/Escort pods – lots of spouting and fluke diving too. On our 10:00 Cruise, we saw more than one competitive pod with the kinds of surface activity you’d expect from male whales in close proximity of each other. We also saw lots of HUGE splashes from surface activity occurring all around us. As more and more Humpbacks leave Hawaii in March, it seems like the whales that are left here are getting more and more desperate to find a mate (or several mates), so the battles between them get more intense. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we enjoyed some time with a Mom/Baby/Escort pod, but saw lots of other flukes and spouts too.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales don’t have teeth — they have approximately 270 – 400 pairs of baleen plates hanging from the top palate of their mouths ranging in length from a foot to about 3 feet long. Where the baleen is attached to the palate, it feels like a horse’s hoof — but it fringes out to form dense mats allowing the whale to “strain the soup of the ocean” when feeding. And in case you’re curious, Humpback baleen is black.