Tag Archives: whale breach

What Attracts a Whale

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Aloha, On Wednesday we ran only one whale watch… but guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise had quite the experience! We started the cruise by watching a whale breach 3 times. It was so exciting that it took our collective breath away (we can only imagine how the whale must have felt after all that exertion). And then we found a  pod  of two adults – or rather, they found us! They seemed to think we were something worth investigating because they swam around us, looking at us for a long time. We were theorizing that these whales were both male and that they were thinking that our long, sleek hulls were shaped a lot like a female whale…And just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, these two whales were joined by a third whale who decided to “mug” us for awhile too. Days like today make us very excited to see what tomorrow will bring.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  Humpback whales can’t cry — they don’t have tear ducts (they don’t need them — their eyes are always bathed in salt water) but they do have glands on their outer corneas which secrete an oily substance that helps to protect their eyes from debris in the ocean

Singing a New Tune

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Aloha,
With the risk of sounding like a broken record, Thursday was another windy day. But guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay did see whales. According to our onboard naturalist Mike, there were lots of “blows and goes” — whales just surfacing, spouting, and diving. We did see some breaching and splashing on the horizon though, and when we deployed the hydrophone, the sounds we heard were loud and clear. On our 12:30 Whale Watch, most of us (except for our on board naturalist, Angelica who was looking the wrong way) saw a whale breach RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BOW! After that, we saw whales everywhere we looked, including two cow/calf/escort pods.We also found a competitive pod and watched as one whale breached, landing on another in the pod…and then the same whale (we think) head lunged on top of another whale…lots of charging and trumpeting from this pod. At the end of the trip, just as we were returning to the bay, a Mom and her Baby decided to acquaint themselves with us, circling the boat and looking at all of us. And on the Whales and Cocktails cruise, guests saw lots of whales and lots of very close-by surface activities including head lunges, pectoral slaps, peduncle throws, breaches, and tail lobs. We found 3 Mom/Baby/Escort pods and a couple of different competitive pods. We were able to deploy the hydrophone on this trip and the sounds we heard were so loud that we actually had to turn the volume down by half so we didn’t blast everyone right off the boat.
Mahalo, and have a great weekend.
I’ll send out the next report on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  To our untrained ears, the sounds we hear from our Hydrophones sound pretty random, though we have noticed the lack of certain phrases this year that we heard fairly often last year (most notably, a phrase that sounded like “whoop,Whoop, WHOOP, WHOOP WHOOP“).  And this year we’re hearing a very distinctive laughing-type sound (HEH – HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH).  According to a paper published in the journal Current Biology, it turns out that our ears aren’t so untrained after all. Researchers have documented that the Humpback songs in the South Pacific are actually changing really quickly. Over the last decade, completely new song themes are appearing within a season. The researchers compared the radical evolution of the Humpbacks’ songs to human musical composition, suggesting that the themes are so novel, it’s as if whole new human musical genres were appearing that no one had ever heard just a few years ago

Triple Breach…and that was just the beginning….

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Aloha,
Monday was another windy day, but we had lots of fun on the water. On our 12:30 Whale Watch, we saw about 30 different whales including 5 different Moms with their babies in tow. This trip started with a spectacular triple breach from a pod of Mom/Baby/Escort, and the breaching just kept going on. We watched a calf breach over and over and over and over…too  many times to count. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw more than 20 different whales, including a Mom and calf who stayed within 10 feet of us for almost 20 minutes (we don’t dare move the boat when they’re that close…besides the fact that maneuvering within 100 yards of the whales is illegal, we wouldn’t want to do anything that would affect their behaviors). We also saw lots of breaches and tail lobbing from different whales in the distance. When the wind calmed down enough for us to drop the hydrophone, we heard some great sounds.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:   Humpbacks can maintain a consistent body temperature even when swimming in cold Alaskan waters. How do they do that? Besides their protective layer of blubber, they actually have something called a “counter current” circulatory system. Some arteries in their flippers, flukes, and dorsal fin are surrounded by veins, allowing some heat from the blood traveling through the arteries to be transferred to the venous blood returning to their hearts, instead of being lost to the environment. Tomorrow, I’ll explain how Humpbacks keep their cool in Hawaiian waters.

Close Encounters as the Wind Disappears

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Aloha,
We finally got to say “aloha” to the wind this morning – we experienced not a breath of wind on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, which made for some great whale sightings. We must have seen close to 30 different Humpbacks. We had 4 different close encounters with different pods of whales, saw 5 breaches (though those were further away) and also witnessed a couple of tail lobs and a couple of pectoral slaps. And because the wind died down, we were finally able to deploy the hydrophone, hearing some great clear singing. What a great way to start the day! On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 25 whales, including two pods of Cow/Calf/Escort. The first of those two pods came right over to the boat and we all got to see Mom balancing her baby on her rostrum, and the baby rolling over and slapping the water with his little pec fins. We went out again from Kawaihae at 12:30, and this time we saw 30 different whales including a pod of Mom/Baby/Escort close by. The escort must have breached 30 times! And then we saw another pod of Mom/Baby breaching in the distance – Mom would breach, followed by the calf breaching. Mom breached 3 times and the calf breached twice. And we finished the day on the Whales and Cocktails cruise, where once again, everywhere we looked we saw whales. We found a Mom/Baby/Escort pod right off the bat, and they seemed curious enough about us to approach us. We saw lots of breaching and when we deployed the hydrophone, we heard some very clear singing. All in all, it was a great day on the water.
Mahalo, and have a wonderful weekend. I’ll send out the next report on Monday!
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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 believe 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.

Breaches Everywhere

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Aloha,
Yet another windy day on the Kohala Coast meant we had to cancel a few trips…but on our Breakfast with the Whales cruise on Seasmoke out of Anaeho’omalu Bay, we did get to see some action. We watched a Mom with her active baby – baby breached 3 times. We also saw some breaches in the distance (though it was too windy to get to those whales). And we had a close encounter with two big adult Humpbacks who decided to surface about 40 feet from us. On the Whales and Cocktails cruise, we saw a couple of whales breaching in the distance just as we left the bay. The wind was still pretty strong, so we decided not to go out to see them, but we did count 10 breaches between the two of them. We headed north towards the Mauna Lani instead, where we found a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Baby breached 3 times right near the boat, and then we saw a huge tail lob and multiple pec slaps from the adults in the  group. After that, we found a third pod of adults and as the grand finale, one of them breached right next to the boat, giving all of us a great close-up view of the power and size of the whale.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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). We have an epiglottis which protects our lungs from accidental inspiration of food or liquid – Humpbacks don’t need one…but that also means that a Humpback can only breathe thru her blowholes and not thru her mouth

Windy Weekend Brings Plenty of Action

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Aloha,
The winds were up certainly strong past weekend, so we ended up having to cancel a few charters…but we were able to operate out of Anaeho’omalu  and here are some highlights from the past few days…On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw multiple competitive pods with lots of action consisting of many males swimming fast and banging into each other. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails, we enjoyed two very close encounters with two different Mom/Calf pods. We found the first pod just outside of the Bay. Baby breached 5 times before balancing precariously on Mom’s rostrum. Mom brought him right over to the boat and we all got a good look at each other! We found the second pod a little further south. This baby breached 3 times and head lunged twice before swimming our way. Again, Mom let him come right over to the boat and swim alongside before they both took off. On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw 3 different Mom/Baby pods, and enjoyed watching yet another excited calf breach a few times. We also saw a couple of adult breaches (one fairly close by) and a couple of small competitive pods composed of smaller whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Though Humpback whales in different hemispheres migrate on opposite schedules (when it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere) and therefore are very unlikely to meet, no subspecies of Humpbacks are recognized genetically. In fact there has been some research done on maternal lineages that demonstrates relationships which exist in the present across hemispheric boundaries. This suggests that at one point (perhaps in the very distant past) there was some level of inter-hemispheric gene flow.

A Day Full of Breaching

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Aloha
If you read the Whale Report I sent out on Thursday morning, it may have been a little confusing since I somehow got a day ahead of myself, and I was really reporting on Wednesday’s Whale Watches…sorry about that, and here’s the recap for the real Thursday.
Thursday’s Whale Watches started out with pretty much “every activity you could see from Humpbacks” according to our naturalist Mike. We saw tail lobs, peduncle throws, pec slaps, head lunges and even a few breaches. We also had two close encounters with different pods of Mom/Baby who swam by to check us out. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw over 30 different Humpbacks, but the highlights were definitely the competitive pods we found  – especially the second one. The whale in front of this group (which according to researchers, is almost always the female) did 6 full breaches expressing her excitement (or anxiety, or irritation, or health…not sure which). We also saw multiple peduncle throws, tail lobs and pec slaps from the other whales in this pod. And on the Whales and Cocktails cruise, we saw lots of breaches and pec slaps in the distance, but towards the end of the cruise we found a Mom/Baby/Escort pod with a very active calf. Baby breached repetitively, and the escort performed several peduncle throws right near the boat.
Mahalo, and enjoy your weekend! I really will send out the next report on Monday,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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 partners…or 2). Female Humpbacks are overwhelmed by aggressive males and bullied into mating.

Backwards Breach?

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Aloha,
On Tuesday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we encountered a competitive pod of 4 whales (one of whom we’re pretty sure we watched in a competitive pod on Monday, based on the markings on his flukes). For awhile, we watched two of the whales in this pod swimming belly to belly. Mom had her calf out in front of the group, and though to our naturalist Ryan the calf looked tired, Ryan did report that the calf was definitely keeping up with the group. We also encountered another pod with a very active tail lobber. At one point, this whale had about 80 percent of his body out of the water while lobbing…it looked like a backwards breach. On our way back to the bay, we found another pod of Mom/Baby/Escort, and watched them swim along the surface. On our 10:00 Whale Watch we saw lots of breaches and and had a couple of close encounters with whales swimming by who swung over to check us out. And we went out again at 12:30 and had a great encounter with with a Mom and her calf who decided to swim right under our boat. We deployed the hydrophone on both of these trips and heard some very loud, clear singing. We finished the day with sightings of 20 different whales on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise. We found one Mom with her Baby (no escort) and lots of pods of 3 whales. We saw some pec slapping and some beautiful fluke dives on this trip too.
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?

More Height of the Season Competition

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Aloha,
We began our Monday Whale Watch with “tons of whales in all directions” (that’s according to our marine naturalist Angelica) sighted from the Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. She then gave us a more accurate estimate of a total of 36 whales seen throughout the cruise. We watched a Mom/Baby/Escort pod in about 60 feet of water… until we saw a competitive pod who showed us a few head lunges. We then found a pod of a couple of smaller whales, and watched them battle for awhile, seeing lots of tail lobs and peduncle throws. Just as we were returning to the bay, we saw a huge breach followed by some pec slaps (which looked to us as if the whale was waving “Aloha”). On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw about 20 different whales and lots of breaching in the distance. We watched a Mom/Baby/Escort pod hanging out on the surface. Mom was just kind of laying on her side, and the escort was swimming along just below her, but so close to the surface that we could see him really well. It was pretty windy out there, but when we were in the right position to deploy the hydrophone, we gave it a try and heard some very loud and clear songs.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: There’s a time when a whale is still in its fetal stage that it’s covered in fur. By the time the calf is born, the fur has disappeared. Many researchers believe that this is another indication that whales have evolved from an animal with a common ancestor to a hippo. The idea that the stages of an animal’s fetal development reflect evolutionary development or “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny” was first proposed by Ernst Haeckel around 1900.