Tag Archives: Mom/Baby

Spinners Spin but Humpbacks Glow

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Aloha,

We had a beautiful day on the water on Monday…with the trade winds blowing, we were not only able to see all the mountains on our island but Haleakala too! Both of our morning cruises departed from Kawaihae on Alala, and though they were back to back, we had different experiences on each. Guests joining us on the Wake up With the Whales Cruise were greeted with a very active, curious, and playful pod of Spinner Dolphins, As soon as this pod heard our boat, they made a bee-line towards us and spend considerable time jumping, spinning, and riding our bow wake. After playing with them for awhile, we headed towards some spouts off in the distance. These turned out to be from a very quiet Mom and Baby humpback, who were just breathing and resting on the surface. Though we didn’t approach them closer than 100 yards, they spent considerable time on the surface, so we all got a good look at them.

On our 10:00 Signature Whale Watch, we headed out towards where we had left our Mom and baby…but on the way there,  found a different Mom and calf. We sat and watched baby as he swam a complete circle on the surface…and then got to see Mom swim a complete circle around her baby. These two were accompanied by an escort – and all three of them had pure white pectoral fins that just glowed with that beautiful luminescent turquoise color whenever the whales were near the surface. After watching this trio for awhile, we saw some big Humpbacks breach a little further out, so we headed that way. By the time we got there they were done breaching, but they both surfaced giving us a good view of them. And finally, on our way back into the harbor, we found one more Mom/baby pod. The little guy was doing everything he could to breach, and as we watched, he almost was able to pull it off – more of a flop than a breach, but we though we couldn’t agree what to call what we we seeing, we all had to agree it was very cute!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback whales, and actually all Cetaceans, have a highly developed sense of touch. We know this because they have a lot of nerve endings right beneath their skin, and there’s a lot of blood flow to the nerve endings. Plus they touch each other a lot. Also, when researchers take pencil-eraser sized plugs of skin and blubber from whales to study their DNA (and when you consider the size of the whale, that’s a pretty insignificant amount of skin), they report seeing the whales flinch.

Breaching all Day

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Aloha,

Our Tuesday morning started off pretty calmly. We operated our our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on Alala from Kawaihae, and saw spouts from 5 different Humpbacks. One of them gave us a tail lob right near the boat. We got back to the harbor at 10:00, picked up some more guests and went right back out again. This time we saw a lot more…for about 15 minutes we watched a couple of adult humpbacks pec slapping and tail lobbing. We also got to see baby trying out his skills with some mini tail-lobs. And then for a grand finale, we saw both Mom and baby breach! And the highlight of our Whales and Cocktails was watching an adult humpback breach.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: In 1919, R.G. Meyers, who was working towards his PhD in Chemistry at Stanford University, conducted a chemical analysis of Humpback whale blood collected from the thoracic cavity of a whale killed in Monterey Bay. He found that the Humpback’s total cholesterol level was similar to a healthy human’s, but the glucose level was 4 times what’s considered a “healthy” level for a human. Since there are not a lot of carbohydrates in a Humpback’s diet, a Humpback’s liver and pancreas must work differently than ours.

When getting Mugged is a Good Thing

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Aloha,

We took out two boats for our Wake up with the Whales Cruise on Thursday. Guests aboard Seasmoke found ourselves the object of attention for our favorite pod — Mom and Baby. These two whales stayed with us for over an hour, diving and surfacing right next to the boat, We wore ourselves out running from bow to stern, port to starboard, watching the whales as they watched us. We loved seeing them right below the surface of the water  – their white pec fins glowing with that incredible turquoise color as they reflected through the water, and we loved looking into their eyes when they surfaced. Watching baby sit on Mom’s rostrum was a real treat too! When we were able to take our eyes away from them, we also saw tail lobs and breaches all around us from other whales.
And though Manu Iwa departed from the same location at the same time, guests aboard that boat had a slightly different experience – an experience that can be summed up in just one word, “Breach”! A pod of Mom and baby found the boat quickly and baby breached so many times that we all lost count. Then we saw a sub-adult breach right next to us…then we saw a fully grown adult Humpback breach right next to us!
On the 10:00 Signature Whale Watch Cruise from Kawaihae we were astounded by the absence of activity. Though we did see a Humpback surface several times, and some of us saw a breach, it really wasn’t the experience we want to give our guests so Captain Kino called it a “Fluke” and we invited our guests to join us again on another cruise for free. So…did the Humpbacks move away from the area because of the tiger shark that had been seen at Hapuna Beach? Did the low flying helicopters that were out looking for the shark alter the behavior of the Humpbacks? We don’t know for sure, but it’s only the third week of March, so we know there are still lots of Humpbacks visiting the area.
Have a great weekend – I’ll send out my next report on Monday,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers taking DNA samples from the whales take pencil eraser sized plugs of skin and blubber by using a dart tip on the end of an arrow propelled by an air-rifle or crossbow. Tissue samples are used to ascertain a wide variety of information including sex, age, hormone levels, dietary composition, stress levels, contaminant levels, and the presence of viral or bacterial diseases among other things.

 

Magic on the Water

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Aloha,

Our Wednesday Whale Watches were really fun. On our Wake up with the Whales Cruise on Manu Iwa, we got to see 4 double breaches — we’re never really sure how whales can time that so perfectly and it’s astounding to see. Our idling boat was also approached by a couple of big adults who decided to take a good look at our hulls, diving just below us. The water was so calm and flat that we could almost count the tubercles on their pectoral fins as they swam underneath. And our 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala was just magical. Shortly after we left the harbor, we found a Mom with her baby and an escort. According to our on-board naturalist Donna, guests could clearly see baby resting on Mom’s rostrum (her head). They stayed that way for a very long time, until baby rolled away. Then, Donna reported seeing some splashing further down the coast so Captain Kino cruised over to see what was going on. There were 3 adult humpbacks on the surface just rolling around. It wasn’t aggressive…they were showing their flukes, their bellies, and their pec fins. They kept rolling around each other getting closer and closer to our idling boat. Then they decided to dive underneath us, but even then they stayed close enough to  the surface for us to see them. After passing underneath us, we had to head back to the harbor where we saw our  Mom,baby and escort again…this time accompanied by a pod of Spinner Dolphins! And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, Captain Kealohi reports that guests saw about two dozen different whales…lots of Mom/Baby pods (most accompanied by escorts), and 4 different competitive pods.
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?

Life Cycle of Humpbacks

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Aloha,

Researchers think that the gestation period for a Humpback is around 11 months, which means the calves we’re seeing this year were conceived last year…and on Tuesday, we got to see both aspects of the life cycle, Our Tuesday Wake up With the Whales Cruise began with Mom and calf right outside of the bay. They stayed with us for about 15 Baby breachesminutes, and then we saw a competitive pod starting up, so we left our Mom and calf and headed out to see what was going on. There were some really aggressive whales in this pod, banging into each other, head lunging and pec slapping. It was difficult to see if there was a female being chased, or if this was just a group of males fighting amongst each other. We were fortunate enough to watch this pod for over an hour before we had to leave them and return to the bay.On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, a Mom/Calf pod spent some time with us, followed by a different Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Baby breached repeatedly (and adorably). And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we also got to watch two different Mom/Calf pods. The first was accompanied by 2 escorts, and the second pod was accompanied by 3 escorts. There was a lot of competition going on between the males in the second group, which got baby excited. That little guy kept breaching and breaching and breaching just about 50 yards from our idling boat.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Not all whaling activity occurred during the “golden age of whaling” at the beginning of the 19th century. Based on catch records corrected for illegal Soviet whaling, a total of more than 200,000 Humpback Whales were killed in the Southern Hemisphere from 1904 to 1980. Also, Illegal Soviet takes of 25,000 Humpback Whales in two seasons (1959/60 and 1960/61) precipitated a population crash and the closure of land stations in Australia and New Zealand.

 

Whale Fight Enthralls

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Aloha,

We had a fun weekend despite some periods with less than calm seas. As usual, I won’t recap every cruise we ran since it would make this email too long…but there were Humpbacks everywhere we looked during Friday’s Wake Up with the Whales on Seasmoke. Captain Baker reports seeing 5 breaches, and LOTS of peduncle throws, tail lobs and pec slaps. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails, we found ourselves surrounded by a competitive pod. The water was pretty rough, but we were enthralled by all the action. We got to see these whales bang into each other, hit each other with their flukes, peduncle throw right on top of each other, and even pec slap each other. We’re normally not violent people, but watching all of this was so exciting.
On Sunday’s 12;30 Cruise from Kawaihae,we saw Humpbacks in all directions, including a very active competitive pod, and a younger whale who breached and then head lunged 5 times in a row On our Whales & Cocktails Cruise, Mom and baby were waiting for us at the mouth of the bay. And later in the cruise, we were mugged for more than 20 minutes by two adult Humpbacks who hung out right underneath the stern!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Those lines we see under the Humpback’s mouth are actually pleats that allow for the expansion of her mouth when she feeds. This expansion, combined with her ability to flex her jaws, allows her to hold up to 15,000 gallons of sea water in her mouth at one time — that’s the equivalent of 160,000 cans of Diet Pepsi (or Budweiser) in every gulp — of course, she doesn’t swallow the water she gulps…just the unlucky fish that had been swimming in it.

Swell time Despite the Swell

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Aloha,

Well the surf that came up on Thursday decided to stick around for most of the weekend, so we were forced to cancel a lot of our Whale Watch Cruises. But on the few cruises we did take out, it seemed that the whales were as happy to see us as we were to see them. For instance, on Saturday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke from Anaeho’omalu Bay, we got to see 7 breaches. But that wasn’t all. It seemed like no matter which way we looked, there was something going on at the surface — peduncle throws, tail lobs, pectoral slaps. Perhaps the best of all though, was when we found ourselves the object of interest for a Mom and her calf who decided to surface right next to us while we were all looking the other way. By Sunday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had some wind along with the swell, but we still got to see Mom and calf, and we also got to see a lone adult cruising along the surface.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A distinguishing morphological (body) characteristic of the Humpback is the length of her pectoral fins. Their average length is 1/3rd the length of the Humpback’s body (approx. 15 feet). The genus name for the Humpback (Megaptera) describes the fin – the translation from Latin for Megaptera is “Big – Winged”)

Delicious, Nutritious Humpback Whale Milk

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Aloha,

We started out our Wednesday with some excellent sightings on both Manu Iwa and Seasmoke for our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise. On Manu Iwa, we saw more than 20 Humpbacks within a mile from us, but many of them were much closer. We got to see a Mom and her baby unaccompanied by an escort. Baby breached a few times (probably burning off some of the energy he gains from drinking all that milk). We also saw a few HUGE (45 foot plus) whales — one of whom surfaced within 20 feet of us while we were idling with the hydrophone in the water. And speaking of the hydrophone — we heard a whole symphony when we deployed it today. While all this was going on, we also saw peduncle throws, and lots of pectoral slaps. Since Seasmoke departed at the same time from the same location, we decided to look for our “own” whales, and boy, did we find them! We watched a calf and his Mom for awhile, before another whale surfaced less than 100 feet from us. We actually didn’t know which way to look for a lot of the charter since there were whales everywhere! We saw lots of pec slaps, breaches, and peduncle throws, and also heard some pretty clear singing when we deployed our hydrophone.
On our 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, we found a Mom/Calf pod just north of the harbor. We watched them for awhile and got to see baby breach before we headed off to watch some of the other bigger whales we were seeing out a bit further. We came across a competitive pod of 5 whales who were doing their usual competitive aggressive behaviors — head lunging, peduncle throwing, and bubble blowing. At one point, they all passed within about 50 feet of our idling boat. On the way back to the harbor, we found our Mom and baby again. We stopped to watch baby breach 8 more times…but had to head back to the dock. As we left (which it was just killing us to do, but we had to get back), we watched baby continuing to breach over and over and over again.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Being mammals, Humpback Moms feed their calves milk. But Humpback milk isn’t just any old milk — it’s extremely rich with a fat content of approximately 50%! Human milk contains only about 4.5% fat. Supposedly, Humpback milk tastes like “sweetened cod liver oil” …but I don’t know that from experience!

Video of a Mom and Baby Playing

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Aloha,

We ran two different 8:00 Wake up with the Whales Cruises on Tuesday. Both boats report seeing 10  12 different Humpbacks, and both boats report that the whales were pretty quiet. Guests aboard Seasmoke were accompanied for over an hour by one lone mid-size (sub-adult) Humpback. This guy was surfacing every 5-7 minutes clearly looking at us. We all got good looks at his the bumps on his spine from his vertebrae, and we even got to look down his blowholes! Guests on Manu Iwa experienced a close-encounter too…this one was from an adult Humpback.
Highlights from our 10:00 Whale Watch included Mom and baby breaching…was Mom teaching baby how to do it, or just caught up in the fun? I’ve attached some video of the event  courtesy of our crew extraordinaire, Jason.
Mahalo and enjoy the last day of 2014. I’ll check in again next year!
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: This fact was corrected in our post dated 1/9/2015. Here’s the correct information: Back on New Year’s Eve, I posted a fact about Humpback Whale vertebrae. One of my sources reported that of the 52-54 vertebrae found in a Humpback’s spine, 10 are fused to form the sacrum. Our favorite researcher Chris Gabriele (from the Hawaii Marine Mammal Consortium), who had recently been involved in a project putting a Humpback skeleton together contacted me to say that she didn’t see any fused bones. So she contacted bone articulation expert, Dan DenDanto at Whales and Nails who confirmed her observation. He said that it was rare for any balaenopterid whales to have fused bones except in the cervical region (their necks)…and occasionally at the site of an injury.

First Competitive Pod, and Bottlenose Dolphins

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Aloha,

I have to begin this update with an add-on from Wednesday. We got to witness our first competitive pod of the season during Wednesday night’s Sunset Cruise on Alala from Kawaihae. Throughout the course of the cruise, we saw about a dozen whales, but it was just outside of the harbor where we saw the wildest action. 5 whales were chasing each other, head lunging, charging, and trumpeting. One of them breached not one, not two, but three times just 50 feet from the boat! Un-bee-leiv-able!
We started out our Thursday with our Wake up With the Whales Cruise. Captain Jeff Baker reports an outstanding adventure..with pec slaps, a couple of breaches and even a couple of curious whales who swam right underneath us to take a look at us. On the 10:00 Cruise we got to see a mother and a calf (only the second calf we’ve seen this season). Baby was pretty curious about us, and when we stopped the boat, Mom let him swing by to take a good look at us. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we spent the 1st hour cruising around, but the second hour made up for it when we found two Humpbacks offshore of the Mauna Lani Resort area. These whales were surrounded by a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins. And the Bottlenose Dolphins were acting like Spinners – jumping, leaping and flipping. The whales didn’t seem nearly as interested or excited by the dolphins as we were.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the weekend recap on Monday!
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: At birth, a Humpback whale calf weighs between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds which is between 3% and 4% of his Mom’s weight. Interestingly, at birth, human babies are proportionally larger, averaging  4%-5% of their Mom’s weight