Tag Archives: Humpback Mugging

Muggings and Spy Hops

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Aloha,

We had a Kona storm roll in to the island on Friday, so we had to cancel a bunch of our cruises…but we did get to go out a couple of times, and we got to see some pretty fun stuff. On our Friday Wake-up With the Whales, guests on Manu Iwa spent the first hour or so watching 10 different whales in pods of two just spouting and diving. We did get a few great fluke shots. But towards the end of the cruise, we were “mugged” by a sub-adult! This guy came right up to the boat, spy-hopped on the starboard side and looked at all of us. We were going crazy! Then he slid below the surface, swam underneath us and spy-hopped on the port side looking at all of us again! On Friday’s 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala we saw spouts from 14 different Humpbacks. Most were in pods of two, but we did see a few solo whales. Everyone seemed to be very relaxed, just surfacing, taking 3 or 4 breaths and diving. Most of the whales were on 15-17 minute dive cycles.
By Sunday, the ocean had calmed down a little, but it was still sort of bumpy out there. On our 8:00 Wake-up with the Whales, we saw 6 different Humpbacks, mostly just breathing and diving. Same thing on our 10:00 Whale Watch — we saw 10-12 different whales and they were all just spouting and diving.But on our mid-day private Whale Watch we got to see some breaching about 75 yards from the boat.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback 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, the tip of her rostrum may be 15 feet above the surface before her eyes get there!Humpback Mugs Boat

6 pods? Unbelievable!

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Aloha,

Our Thursday Whale Watch Cruises were really pretty spectacular. We started the day with the 8:00 Wake up with the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke out of Anaeho’omalu Bay. Captain Baker reports that the whales didn’t need any waking up. Guests saw 6 different pods of two whales…yes, you read that correctly..12 different whales (and this is on December 4th)! The whales were all in the near vicinity of the Hilton Waikoloa Village and Anaeho’omalu so we didn’t even have to travel far. And not only did we get to see the whales, but one pod came right over and “mugged” us, hanging with us for about 5 minutes. If you have access to Facebook, we invite you to watch this short video clip posted by one of this morning’s guests (Mahalo Nui Loa, Diane!)..
On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, Captain Ryan (who was our  naturalist) reports that we saw 2 pods of two whales. The first pod was near the Mauna Lani Resort, and the second pod was off shore a little further. Both pods were surfacing, blowing, and diving, so we got to see some big flukes too.
I’ll send out the next report on Monday…have a great weekend! We hope you get a chance to come out and enjoy one of these early season Whale Watch Cruises with us!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The Whales “mugging” us are definitely taking a look at us. Though Humpbacks rely on their sense of hearing far more than any other sense, we do know that vision is also important to them. Based on the shape of the Humpbacks’ corneas, they can certainly see us…but, they’re probably a bit farsighted when looking through water and a bit nearsighted when looking through the air. And in case anyone asks you, Humpbacks have beautiful brown eyes. Their eyeballs weigh, on average, 2.16 pounds. Human eyeballs weigh about a quarter of an ounce. 2-22-05+006

Mugged All Day – and that’s ok!

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Aloha,
We had a great time on yesterday’s whale watches. On our first trip, we had two whales spend 45 minutes with us just 10 feet from the boat. We also got to see a couple of breaches about 50 feet from the boat, and lots of tail lobs about the same distance. And then, according to our on board naturalist Mike, the next whale watch was even better! The winds had calmed down a bit and we found the same two whales from the first trip, who still wanted to look at us. They were joined by 3 other whales, so now we had 5 Humpbacks curious about the boat. And on the next trip, we had 4 whales spend an hour and a half with us, surfacing, spouting, and even tail lobbing very close by! Of course, all day long we saw lots of other whales around us, but when we’re being “mugged” by curious Humpbacks, we tend to focus our attention on the whales right next to us!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Yesterday, I promised to explain how 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:

Singing and Dancing

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Aloha,
We’ve always kind of assumed that Humpbacks don’t mind the rain — after all, they do live in a wet world… and our Tuesday Whale Watches confirmed that. We began the day with a 10:00 Whale Watch from Anaeho’omalu. Guests saw 7 Humpbacks, including 2 pods of Cow/Calf/Escort. One of the escorts breached really close to the boat. We also saw quite a bit of tail lobbing and heard some great singing when we deployed the hydrophone. On our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails cruise, our guests who braved the on-again, off-again drizzly conditions saw 11 different whales. We weren’t sure if the highlight of the trip was watching a whale breach 100 feet from the boat…TWICE, the 25 minutes we were mugged by a sub-adult male, the pectoral slaps we saw, the loud singing we heard from our hydrophone, or the weirdly beautiful vertical twisting diving “dance” our mugging-whale performed three times as he passed by the boat and decided to return to us. If the whales’ interest in our boats today was at all caused by the weather, we say “Bring on the rain”!
Join Ocean Sports for an exciting Whale Watch Adventure. Call us at 886-6666 ext. 103 or vist www.hawaiioceansports.com for reservations today.
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.
Mahalo,
Captain Claire

Siren’s Song, Protective Mother Whales and a little bit of a Fight

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Aloha,
Wednesday’s Whale Watchers got the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of baby whales. At 8:00, on our Breakfast with the Whales cruise, we spent the first 40 minutes with Mom, her baby and an escort. Mom was pretty protective of her calf, keeping him on the other side of her from the escort (which is the same thing we saw yesterday too). At one point, all three of them surfaced about 20 feet from the boat! The escort did a fluke dive and we all got to see the distinct white markings on the ventral side (that’s the underneath part) of his flukes before he did a turn right underneath our bow! We also watched a competitive pod of 2 whales literally shoving each other across the surface of the ocean. We saw 6 breaches, 2 peduncle throws, and heard some very loud singing. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 14 different whales, including 3 different Cow/Calf pods. We saw 5 breaches and 5 spy hops as well as body and head lunges and some tail lobs. We were “mugged” twice on that trip too, and also heard some very loud songs.
Join Ocean Sports on a Whale Watch and experience the adventure for yourself! Call us at 886-6666 ext. 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com to reserve your seat today.
Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: We don’t always need to deploy our hydrophone to hear the whales singing. When singing whales are very close to the boat, their songs reverberate through the hulls. The uneducated sailors long ago thought that these sounds they were hearing through the holds of the ships were actually sung by sirens (or mermaids).
Mahalo,
Captain Claire

4 Whales and a Close Encounter

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Aloha,
4 seems to be the magic number for our Wednesday Whale Watch cruises, with both cruises reporting sitings of 4 different whales. On the 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala from Kawaihae, guests saw 4 breaches on the horizon, but the highlight of that trip was definitely the close encounter! By law, we need to keep our boats at least 100 yards from any of the Humpbacks we see, but if one of them decides to come a little closer to check us out, it’s certainly ok with us!
Join Ocean Sports on an adventure to see the whales. We offer 3 different trips daily departing from two different locations within the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Waters. Call us at 886-6666 ext. 103, or visit hawaiioceansports.com for more information and reservations.
Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales received protected status from the International Whaling Commission in 1966, banning most nations from hunting them. In the U.S., the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 provide additional protection to the whales. In fact, unless operating under a federal research permit, approaching humpback whales within 100 yards (300 feet) or within 1,000 feet from aircraft is prohibited by federal regulations.
Mahalo,
Captain Claire