Pods of Cows and Calves Predominate

Aloha,
Guests aboard both of our morning Whale Watch Cruises spent lots of time with Humpback Calves. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, 3 different Mom/Baby pods found us. The first baby was pretty curious and tried to approach us, but Mom wouldn’t let him get too close. We also saw some BIG splashes caused by some adult breachers a couple of miles away. On our 10:00 Cruise, the water was eerily calm…and we could see spouts from miles away. Captain Pat made the decision to head west, where we found a very small Mom and calf. At first, they were accompanied by a single escort, but as we watched, 2 more big escorts joined the pod. These big boys decided to fight a bit, and we got to see a few head lunges and a throat inflation from one of them. Mom didn’t appear to be too impressed (or threatened) by the antics of the escorts, as she continued cruising slowly with her calf along the coast line. She did do a good job of keeping herself between the inquisitive calf and all the escorts though. We also got to see one more Mom/baby pod, and 8 other whales in pods of two on this cruise.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the DayResearchers are not sure how Humpbacks find their way from Alaska to Hawaii each winter…after all; Hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world. Since small particles of a form of iron called “magnetite” have been found in Humpback’s brains, some researchers theorize that the magnetite acts like a magnet, helping the Humpbacks to feel the magnetic pull of the earth and keeping them on track. Other researchers disagree, claiming that the Humpbacks swim in such straight lines when they migrate that they must be orienting themselves with a combination of methods, including some celestial markers like the position of the sun during the day, and the stars at night.

Lots of Tri-Pods

Aloha,
We can certainly tell by our weekend of whale watching that it’s the beginning of March! This is the part of the season for us when traditionally, we see the highest proportion of pods consisting of Mom/Baby/Escort, and also when we see lots of competitive pods. We ran a lot of whale watches these past few days, so I’ll just list some of the highlights.
On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw more than two dozen different whales, but we focused our attention on three different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We got to watch some pretty cute acrobatics from a couple of different babies who seemed to think that rolling around on Mom’s rostrum was a good way to spend the morning. We had 4 very close encounters on that trip with different pods…and to top it off, we got to watch a pod of Spinner Dolphins towards the end of our cruise, right outside of the Bay.
On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we started seeing whales before we even got on the boat! Two whales just outside of the bay were breaching and peduncle throwing multiple times while our guests boarded. And once aboard, we found 4 different competitive pods, and we saw breaching, tail lobs and peduncle throws from two of the pods. The other two pods seemed very intent on the chase. We also found two Mom/baby/escort pods.
And on Sunday, guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales started the cruise with a pod of Spinner Dolphins just outside of the bay. We also saw 4 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, a couple of fantastic breaches, and some very energetic tail lobbing and peduncle throws.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:Though measuring the length and weight of a Humpback’s internal organs is not really an exact science, it’s been estimated that the intestines of a fully grown Humpback whale are about 200 feet long (approximately 5 times the length of her body).