Aloha,

Guests aboard our Whale Watches on Tuesday so the whole gamut of whale behaviors. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we watched two whales on the move for pretty much the entire trip. These two would surface simultaneously, spout two or three times, and then do a shallow dive (we didn’t see their flukes) and stay underwater for 20 minutes, only to surface again further down the coast. They were in a real pattern…staying underwater the same length of time between breaths…and travelling about the same distance before surfacing each time. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, a pod of three whales found us – Mom, Baby, and Escort (the whale we call the “Escort” is almost certainly not the father of the calf – but he is a male who is hanging around Mom for as long as she’ll let him – I’ll tell you more about this in today’s fact of the day and in future emails).. They were very active – we saw multiple breaches, pec slaps, shark finning (that’s when the whale turns sideways just below the surface showing only half of his fluke and it looks a lot like a shark fin) and head lunges. Mom was a big whale, but her baby was really small. Captain Ryan said it was “the best trip [he’s] had so far all season”!

 

Mahalo and Mele Kalikimaka!

Claire

 

Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:We frequently see Mom and Baby whale accompanied by a third whale. We used to think it was a female helping mom take care of her baby, but now that we can identify gender more easily, we know it isn’t. It’s a male. Though a new mom rarely ovulates, researchers believe that perhaps the male whale is “hoping to make a good impression” so when she is receptive, he may be the first to mate with her.