Tag Archives: competitive pod

Double Breach, Close Encounters and a Symphony

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Aloha,
We ran all kinds of Whale Watches on Thursday. On our 9:00 Kid’s Field Trip Cruise (yes – we run educational cruises just for our local school kids – and when I think of the boring field trips I used to attend, I have to admit I’m kind of envious) — the kids got to see about 15 different whales, including a couple of competitive pods. The kids also saw several Humpback Mom/Baby pods, and a couple of breaches from some adult Humpbacks. On the 11:00 Kid’s Field Trip Cruise, the kids saw a breach just 100 yards from the boat. They also saw a Mom/Baby/Escort pod – and the escort did some pec slaps. The water was so clear on Thursday, that you could see the outlines of the whales’ bodies as they swam just below the surface. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we watched Mom/Baby/Escort swim right underneath our bow, and then saw the dissolution of a small competitive pod. And we began our 10:00 Cruise with a double breach. We also got to hear some of the loudest singing we’ve heard this season when we deployed our hydrophone.
Just a personal note…I will be offline all next week, so Kay, our Director of Sales and Marketing, will be sending you the Humpback Updates from her email address! Have a wonderful week, and I’ll be back again for the report on March 17th.
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.

Moms and Babies

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Aloha,
Guests aboard our Wednesday Breakfast with the Whales Cruise spent considerable time with a pod of Mom and her baby. They both were pretty active on the surface, so we got to see lots of spouting, dorsal fins, flukes, and a lot of twisting and diving from the little calf. We know the calf nurses often (probably every hour), so we often wonder when he’s diving down, if that’s what’s going on. On the Snorkel Cruise, we got some to see some Humpback action too, as we paralleled a competitive pod for awhile. We’re always amazed at the turbulence a pod of whales can create as they charge across the surface, and this pod was definitely charging. And we finished the day with another Mom/Baby pod on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise. These whales were resting quietly on the surface, just spouting and swimming slowly. When we dropped the hydrophone we heard lots of loud, clear singers.
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. Humpbacks in the North Atlantic give birth for the first time between ages 5 and 7.

New Born Humpback Calf

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Aloha, Our weekend of Whale Watching started out with a bang! On Friday’s 10:00 Cruise, guests got to watch not 1…not 2… but 3 competitive pods of 5 whales each all at the same time! There was way more head lunging, peduncle throwing, pec slapping and breaching going on than we could keep track of…and we pretty much all lost our voices shouting out encouragement to all these whales in their battles for dominance. On the 12:30 Cruise, the waters quieted down. We watched several whales all in one small area just spouting…and then…all of a sudden, we saw the smallest calf we had ever seen. This little guy’s dorsal fin was completely bent over (indicating a VERY recent birth). Mom had the little whale resting on her rostrum and was gently pushing him around on the surface heading towards shore. As Captain Will put it, “Absolutely Incredible”! On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we were watching a couple of adult whales but were all surprised when a calf popped up right off the bow of the boat. We could see mom under the water, but she never did surface near us. On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw 15 different whales including 3 Mom/Baby pods. One of the little calves was very energetic, breaching 3 times, pec slapping and tail lobbing. When we deployed the hydrophone, we did hear multiple voices, but none of the singers were very close. And on the 10:00 Cruise we watched Mom and Baby breaching (was she teaching him how or were they both communicating something important?). We also got to watch a small competitive pod doing pec slaps and tail lobs. By Sunday, the weather moved in so we only got to run the morning cruises – but at 10:00 am we were the object of curiosity for Mom and her Baby Humpback. They surfaced and dove next to us for 45 minutes…we even got spouted upon. We also saw some breaches in the distance, but we did get lucky when a different whale breached just a couple hundred yards from us. Mahalo, Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to research conducted in Japan, the peak estrus period for Humpbacks (i.e. when females are in heat) overall, is between the end of January and the end of February, but the peak estrus period for females with a calf appears to be several weeks later. Our frequent observations of pods of Mom and Baby who are accompanied by an escort at this time of year seem to support the validity of these findings. Although, since many mature females without calves have left Hawaii already, perhaps it’s not the fact that the females with calves are in estrus that’s attracting the escorts, but just that these males are accompanying any female they can find.

Long Distance Humpback Swimming

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Aloha, We ran 5 different Whale Watch Cruises on Thursday. Highlights included a very active pod of 3 on our 10:00 Whale Watch – mom, her baby, and an escort. The escort did multiple pec slaps, allowing us to really get an idea how big that pectoral fin actually is. Baby did his best to keep up with the adults as they moved pretty quickly down the coast. On the Private afternoon Whale Watch, we saw lots of different Humpbacks. They were mostly moving down the coast line, so we saw lots of spouts and lots of flukes. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, the whales were pretty mellow. We saw lots of dorsal fins from the surfacing whales, allowing us a good view of the variation in size and shape of those fins. We also saw a lot of flukes as the whales began their longer deeper dives. When we deployed the hydrophone on this trip, we were able to hear many different voices, but none of the singers’ voices was distinct, leading us to believe that a lot of the activity was occurring further off shore. Mahalo and have a great weekend, Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: In Sept. 2013, Dianne Nyad completed a record breaking 110 mile swim from Cuba to Florida – but in the Humpback world, that’s nothing. Migration between Alaska and Hawaii is around 3500 miles. But Humpbacks can swim even further than that. In 2001, a Norwegian tourist snapped a photo of a female Humpback in breeding grounds off the coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. When he found the photo again in 2010 and posted it, researchers were able to match the flukes to a photo they had taken of the SAME whale in breeding grounds off the coast of Brazil — which means she had swum more than 6000 miles! Researchers aren’t sure what motivated the whale to swim across the Atlantic– until this whale was identified in both places, it was assumed that Humpbacks only travelled across latitudes, not longitudes. Which just goes to show you…we still have a LOT to learn.

Spy Hopping Calf and Bubble Blowing Adults

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Aloha,
On Wednesday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we got to see a baby whale playing around on the surface, rolling over, showing us his pec fins and spy hopping with his little mouth open. We also saw a competitive pod doing multiple “head stands” and tail lobs. On our 12:30 Whale Watch, we were accompanied most of the trip by a Mom/Baby/Escort pod who all surfaced near us multiple times and even accompanied us back to the bay. Then the wind came up — so it was a bit bumpy on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, but that didn’t stop us from having a fantastic Whale Watch. We took our time getting out of the bay, and finally came across a pod of Humpbacks who apparently decided it might be interesting to dive below our boat and blow some bubbles. Even with the late afternoon glare on the water, it was still possible see to these whales as they floated and swam below the surface. But the highlight of the trip had to have been when these whales surfaced right next to us, “mugging” us. As usual when it’s windy, we also saw lots of splashes from surface active whales a bit further away. We even saw a few tail lobs and pectoral slaps.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A distinguishing morphological (body) characteristic of the Humpback is the length of her pectoral fins. Their average length is 1/3rd the length of the Humpback’s body (approx. 15 feet). The species name for the Humpback (Megaptera) describes the fin – the translation from Latin for Megaptera is “Big – Winged”).

Breaching at Sunset

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Aloha,
On Tuesday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw flukes and  spouts everywhere we looked. We finished the trip with a great close encounter with a Humpback who decided to swing by our boat and check us out. The word of the evening though was “BREACH”! On our Moku Nui Sunset Sail we saw multiple breaches right in front of the boat. We also got to watch a Mom/Baby pod cruise along side us, and we saw a competitive pod charging across the surface. This pod was really bullying each other with lots of peduncle throws, head lunges, and shoving.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: How do Humpbacks keep their cool when swimming through our warm Hawaiian waters?  During prolonged exercise in warm water, excess heat is shed by increasing circulation to a network of capillaries (in Latin they’re called “retia mirabiliia” which translates to “miracle network”) near the surface of the Humpbacks’ flippers, flukes and dorsal fin — the excess heat is shed to the external environment. In fact, many researchers believe that whales lifting their pectoral fins into the air, or resting with their flukes exposed vertically are actually trying to cool off.

Female Humpbacks Communicate?

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Aloha,
On Wednesday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we got to watch about a dozen different Humpbacks. At first we were just watching a lot of spouting and fluke dives, but when Captain Will stopped the boat, a couple of very big whales surfaced right next to us – twice! Then, we were approached by a Mom with a very small calf (the calf’s dorsal fin hadn’t straightened up yet so we know he was young). After investigating us, they turned to swim away and the little guy did a half-breach. Our 10:00 Whale Watch began with a Mom and her baby coming over to see us. Right after that, we found a small competitive pod of 3 whales. These whales were really active on the surface, giving us a good view of tail lobs, head stands, and even a double spy-hop (making us wonder if the whales were looking at us or were more interested in how they looked to each other above the surface). We finally had to break away from all the action to head back to the harbor, but on the way back in we had whales surfacing 100 yards from us all around the boat. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, our onboard naturalist Mike reports seeing “plenty of whales”. He also reports hearing some great sounds from the hydrophone when it was deployed. But the most interesting part of the charter happened towards the end, when we were approached by two different Mom/Calf pods. The pods were about 20 feet apart, and both of them got very active – tail lobbing repetitively, causing us to question whether they were trying to communicate something urgent to each other or to us.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: We’ve never witnessed a Humpback taking care of two calves. We know she could conceive twins (and whalers occasionally would find twin fetuses) but we doubt she could carry twins to term. And even if she could, we really doubt she could produce the approximately 200 gallons of milk she’d need each day to feed two calves

Muggings, Close Encounters, and Lots of Surface Action

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Aloha,
Thursday was an incredible day for whale watching. Between our 3 boats, we ran a total of 11 Whale Watch Cruises, so reporting details for each would be pretty difficult. Highlights included several muggings (the first on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, where we were approached by two different Mom/Baby pods at different times). On our 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, we also were approached several times by different whales checking us out. We got to see a whale calf attempting multiple breaches (sometimes he just couldn’t quite get the timing right and did more of a back-flop). We also watched a competitive pod of 6 whales charging along the surface of the ocean. Our afternoon trips allowed our guests to see pretty much every surface behavior of the Humpbacks in Hawaii including tail lobs, pec slaps, head lunges, peduncle throws, throat inflations (from whales in competitive pods), and multiple breaches.
Mahalo… have a wonderful weekend, and Happy Valentines Day!
Claire
Captain Claire’s Valentines Day Humpback Fact of the 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.

Barnacles and Breaches

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Aloha,
We ran 4 Whale Watch Cruises on Tuesday, and to quote Captain Patrick (who was on Alala from Kawaihae all day), “there were LOTS of whales all around”. We saw multiple Mom/Baby/Escort pods, multiple unescorted Mom/Baby pods, multiple competitive pods, and even a couple of lone whales. On days like Tuesday, it’s difficult to keep accurate counts of the number of surface displays we saw, so instead of reporting them, we’ll just have to say we saw a little of everything throughout the day, including breaches, tail lobs, head lunges, and peduncle throws. When the whales approached us, we were able to see some interesting scarring on some of their bodies, and when we got lucky enough to see close-up fluke dives, we could actually see the barnacles living on the edges of the whales tails. We did deploy our onboard hydrophones throughout the day, and we got to listen in to all the singing and vocalizations going on underwater too.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The barnacles called “Coronula diadema” live only on Humpback Whales, and they seem to prefer to live on areas of the whale where the water flow is consistent (chin and fins). Though researchers aren’t sure how the barnacle can even find a whale to live on, there is some speculation that because the barnacles are spawning during the winter in Hawaii, the whales here are swimming in “barnacle larvae soup”. When a whale swims by, those “baby” barnacles chemically sense it, and hop on where ever they can. They use their antennae as “feet’ and walk around the whale till they find a suitable spot (which can take quite a while… if the barnacle were the size of a person, the whale would be 20 miles long). Once they find a spot they like, they flip over and produce tube-shaped cavities in their shells that actually draw in prongs of growing whale skin, holding their position on the whale for life.