Tag Archives: whale song

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.

Curious Calves All Weekend Long

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Aloha,
We had nice weekend of whale watching – too many trips to report everything, so I’ll just summarize the highlights, starting with Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales cruise where 3 adult humpbacks decided to surround our boat for close to 15 minutes. On Saturday’s 12:30 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we got to watch an interesting interaction between Mom and her baby. The calf breached about 10 times before mom did a big peduncle throw landing her tail just about on top of the calf…was Mom trying to tell her baby “enough! settle down!”?. We also saw some beautiful fluke dives from a different Cow/Calf/Escort pod – Mom’s flukes were all black, and the escort had some very distinct white patches on his flukes. On Saturday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise we saw 5 different Cow/Calf/Escort pods. We had two really, really close encounters when different escorts came right up along side the boat. We also saw some pretty vigorous tail lobbing and peduncle throws from a different pod. On Sunday, guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise saw lots of breaches in the wind, but were most excited by the Mom and calf who circled our boat for more than 20 minutes. We all got a very good look at these whales (and they got a very good look at us too)!. And a similar thing happened to us on the Sunday Whales and Cocktails Cruise when a Mom and her calf decided to spend a considerable amount of time right next to us. We also saw a series of tail lobs and a peduncle throw from a competitive pod, and lots of breaches but they were in the wind, and we decided it wasn’t worth it to travel out there to see those whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: At birth, a Humpback Whale Calf weighs betweeen 3% and 4% of his Mom’s weight. Interestingly, at birth, human babies average 4%-5% of their Mom’s weight.
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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.

Slow Motion Breaches

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Aloha,
Monday brought us some really blustery conditions, and it was challenging finding the whales, but when we did…oh boy, was it worth it! On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw a total of 15 whales and saw 6 breaches. One of those breaches was only about 25 yards away. When it’s that close, you really get an idea of how big a Humpback actually is, and it looks like slow motion as the whale launches herself completely out of the water.We also saw 4 tail lobs, a peduncle throw and 4 pec slaps. It was too windy for us to deploy our hydrophone, but our onboard naturalist Jonathan played some tapes of the whales, so everyone got to hear the differences between the singing that goes on in Hawaii and the vocalizing in Alaska.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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!

Muggings and More

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Aloha,
Friday brought us some heavy winds so we only ran a couple of Whale Watch Charters. On the Breakfast with the Whales, we saw lots of surface activities, but the highlight of the trip was our close encounter with a Mom and her Baby who were curious enough to swim by and check us out. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 15 different Humpbacks including 4 Mom/Baby pods, three of whom were accompanied by an escort. We also saw 3 different species of dolphins – Spinners, Bottlenose, and Spotted.
The winds calmed a bit on Saturday and we had some great sightings. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we stopped counting at 23 whales. The highlight of the trip was watching a competitive pod of 5 whales really charging each other. At one point we all watched as one of the males literally swam right over another male on the surface. We saw peduncle throws, tail lobs, and head lunges from this group too. On the Whales & Cocktails Cruise, both Seasmoke and Manu Iwa were mugged by a very curious whale. First, the whale spent 35 minutes right next to Seasmoke, and then he swam over to Manu Iwa and stayed for another 25 minutes. It was unreal! We also saw head lunges, breaches, tail lobs, and pec slaps but our memories of exactly how many of each of those activities we saw were erased after the muggings! If you’d like to see photos from this incredible cruise, go to the Hawaii Ocean Sports Fan Page on Facebook.
On Sunday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, guests saw 20 whales including 5 Cow/Calf/Escort pods. We saw lots of surface activity too, including 5 breaches, 10 tail lobs, a couple of peduncle throws and lots of pec slaps. At one point we found ourselves surrounded by 4 different Mom/Baby pods..one on each side of the boat, one at the bow, and one at the stern. And on the Whales & Cocktails Cruise, we saw 35 different whales…there was so much surface activity that we couldn’t keep accurate counts! We loved watching a very active baby whale breaching, tail lobbing, and pec slapping right along side his mom who was doing the same activities! We also loved watching a different calf ride along on top of her Mom’s rostrum…and another highlight was watching yet another calf lying on his back, double pec slapping. This was another one of those whale watches that had action every where you looked and every time you looked. I hate to keep using exclamation marks but I can’t figure out a better way to describe what we were seeing this weekend than by doing this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Most Humpbacks are “right-handed”. Researchers looking at abrasions on Humpbacks’jaws found more abrasions on the right jaw than on the left, and observed more“flippering” with the right flipper than with the left, suggesting a definite right-side preference among the Humpback population.

Competition Intensifies

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Aloha,
The Whale Watching is spectacular right now! Highlights from Monday include sightings of 20 different Humpbacks on our 10:00 Whale Watch, including 3 different Mom/Baby pods. One of these calves was really active, head lunging 4 times and tail lobbing 3 times.But the best part was watching him breach 5 different times. This little guy was really getting good at it – one of the times he actually got a half turn in mid-air! We also saw a competitive pod of 4 whales, and heard some nice clear songs through the hydrophone. The action continued on to the Whales and Cocktails Cruise where we saw 25 different Humpbacks including two competitive pods. The competition was fierce, and we got to witness pretty much every surface display you can see from a Humpback – tail lobs, peduncle throws, pec slaps, breaches, head lunges – you name it and we were there! We also found a Mom with her baby and watched baby breach (very cute when compared with our sightings of the big guys doing it in the throws of competition).
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: All mammals have hair. Humpback Whales are mammals… so where is their hair? Humpbacks have rows of bumps on their chins that we call “tubercles”. Out of each one, sticks a hair that’s about 1/2 inch long that we call a “vibrissa”. Because there’s a nerve ending underneath each hair, and blood flow to the nerve, we know the whales use these hairs to sense something…but we’re not sure what they’re sensing. Quite likely, they use their hairs like cats use their whiskers– to feel some sort of proprioception

Spy Hops, Breaches, and Lots of Singing

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Aloha,
Wednesday’s Whale Watches started out with a bang! On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw somewhere around 35 different whales. We saw 20 breaches (mostly out on the horizon – we can’t always see the animal but we can see the SPLASH). We also saw 3 spy hops, and lots of pec slaps and tail lobs. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we counted 20 different Humpbacks. We did see a competitive pod of 4 whales (our on-board naturalist Jonathan thinks they are the same individuals that we’ve been seeing for the last 3 days). We saw 2 breaches way on the horizon and a couple of head lunges closer in. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise on Manu Iwa, we saw about 20 whales, and enjoyed watching a mom with her little calf. The baby was pretty active, tail lobbing right next to Mom. We saw a bunch of breaches in the distance, but we couldn’t believe it when a whale breached 40 yards from the boat.  Seasmoke was also out on a Whales and Cocktails Cruise last night and guests aboard that boat saw about 15 different whales. Everyone was really excited when a mature Humpback surfaced right behind the boat and then swam along side. Guests also saw a lot of breaching about 400 yards away from the boat. When we deployed the hydrophone on this trip, the sounds we heard were loud and clear.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Spy hopping is one of the ways a Humpback can see what’s going on above the surface of the water. Because Humpbacks have really big heads proportionally, their eyes are about a third of the way down their bodies. When the whale spy hops, she rises slowly and vertically from the water, head first. If she’s a fully grown whale, her rostrum may be 15 feet above the surface before her eyes get there!

Humpbacks Swim Circles Around Us

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Aloha,
Aloha, Tuesday brought our whale watchers some great sightings! As we were leaving the harbor at 10:00, a whale surfaced about 20 feet from our bow! This whale spouted once, checked us out, and then went on his or her way. We saw a few breaches in the distance, and all in all, about 20 whales. We deployed the hydrophone on this trip, and just like yesterday, we heard some great singing. Everyone on the boat was pretty happy, and we were heading in when we encountered a pod of 5 whales who decided to swim circles around the boat! Lots of close encounters from these whales…lots of spouting…lots of excitement. It was a great end to a great charter! In the afternoon, we once again encountered whales right out of the harbor, but since we saw breaching a little bit further out, we went out to investigate. Turns out this was a pod of 5 pretty active whales. They stayed with us for about 20 minutes on the surface…and since the water was crystal clear, we could really see some great details. We saw 10 whales on this trip all together.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: When we say we heard LOUD singing yesterday, just how loud do we mean? Well, Humpback Whales have been recorded producing sounds at around 185 decibels. Because the decibel scales use different references for sounds underwater than thru the air, that’s the equivalent of about 123 decibels for us on the surface…which is as loud as the amplified music at a rock concert when you’re standing directly in front of a tower of speakers.

A Beautiful Voice

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Aloha,
It’s definitely winter on the Kohala Coast with gusty winds and swells…but we think the whales are enjoying the conditions because our Whale Watch Cruises have been reporting some great sightings.HIghlights from Monday include the Breakfast with the Whales, during which guests saw lots of whales including two different calves. We also saw 4 breaches, and when we deployed our hydrophone, we heard what our on board naturalist Mike called “the most beautiful voices ever heard on the planet earth” (and Mike is also a very talented musician, so he knows a beautiful voice when he hears it)! On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw a total of 20 different whales. We watched a competitive pod of 4 whales for quite a while, and saw 4 head lunges, two pec slaps and a peduncle throw from them. This pod swam directly underneath the boat…first we saw them on the surface at the bow, and then they disappeared briefly, only to surface again at our 7:00 position. We saw two cow/calf pairs without escorts and when we deployed our hydrophone, we heard some great singing on this cruise too.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:   All whales, regardless of species, age, or gender make noises. Only Humpback Whales sing an organized song…and only male Humpbacks sing. We used to believe that the males only “sing” when they are in the warmer waters where they mate, though now that we’re listening more closely, we have heard the males singing a bit in their colder feeding waters (mostly at the end of feeding season prior to the beginning of the migration). So, is the male Humpback singing a mating song? Researchers have observed that female whales will not approach a singing male, so if this is a mating song, it seems to be a pretty ineffective one. I’ll share more theories about the purpose of the Humpback Song in future emails.