Spinners and Humpbacks Interact

Aloha,
Guests aboard Tuesday’s 10:00 Whale Watch got to see a wide variety of Humpback behaviors. The cruise stared with a visit by a Mom/Baby/Escort pod who stayed about 200 yards away from us. We enjoyed watching them, but our attention was diverted by some other whales who decided it was time to start a breaching contest. There were 5 of these whales…and they also did some full-on pec slaps and head lunges. After this pod disassociated, we saw some small splashes up near Kohala Estates, so we headed that way and found a big pod of dolphins surrounding a pod of two Humpbacks. Often it looks to us that the Humpbacks want nothing to do with the dolphins, but these two pods stuck together for at least 30 minutes (we had to leave before they separated). And just as we turned the boat to head back to the harbor, one of the Humpbacks breached. Captain Will, who never is speechless, found it difficult to describe his excitement! On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we didn’t have to travel far. We saw lots of pods of Mom/Baby/Escort between the Hilton and the Marriott. One of these pods came to check us out too. We also saw a big breach a bit further away. In total we saw 20 different whales during this cruise, and we only traveled about a mile!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback 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- for proprioception.

New Born Humpback Calf

Aloha, Our weekend of Whale Watching started out with a bang! On Friday’s 10:00 Cruise, guests got to watch not 1…not 2… but 3 competitive pods of 5 whales each all at the same time! There was way more head lunging, peduncle throwing, pec slapping and breaching going on than we could keep track of…and we pretty much all lost our voices shouting out encouragement to all these whales in their battles for dominance. On the 12:30 Cruise, the waters quieted down. We watched several whales all in one small area just spouting…and then…all of a sudden, we saw the smallest calf we had ever seen. This little guy’s dorsal fin was completely bent over (indicating a VERY recent birth). Mom had the little whale resting on her rostrum and was gently pushing him around on the surface heading towards shore. As Captain Will put it, “Absolutely Incredible”! On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we were watching a couple of adult whales but were all surprised when a calf popped up right off the bow of the boat. We could see mom under the water, but she never did surface near us. On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw 15 different whales including 3 Mom/Baby pods. One of the little calves was very energetic, breaching 3 times, pec slapping and tail lobbing. When we deployed the hydrophone, we did hear multiple voices, but none of the singers were very close. And on the 10:00 Cruise we watched Mom and Baby breaching (was she teaching him how or were they both communicating something important?). We also got to watch a small competitive pod doing pec slaps and tail lobs. By Sunday, the weather moved in so we only got to run the morning cruises – but at 10:00 am we were the object of curiosity for Mom and her Baby Humpback. They surfaced and dove next to us for 45 minutes…we even got spouted upon. We also saw some breaches in the distance, but we did get lucky when a different whale breached just a couple hundred yards from us. Mahalo, Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to research conducted in Japan, the peak estrus period for Humpbacks (i.e. when females are in heat) overall, is between the end of January and the end of February, but the peak estrus period for females with a calf appears to be several weeks later. Our frequent observations of pods of Mom and Baby who are accompanied by an escort at this time of year seem to support the validity of these findings. Although, since many mature females without calves have left Hawaii already, perhaps it’s not the fact that the females with calves are in estrus that’s attracting the escorts, but just that these males are accompanying any female they can find.

Long Distance Humpback Swimming

Aloha, We ran 5 different Whale Watch Cruises on Thursday. Highlights included a very active pod of 3 on our 10:00 Whale Watch – mom, her baby, and an escort. The escort did multiple pec slaps, allowing us to really get an idea how big that pectoral fin actually is. Baby did his best to keep up with the adults as they moved pretty quickly down the coast. On the Private afternoon Whale Watch, we saw lots of different Humpbacks. They were mostly moving down the coast line, so we saw lots of spouts and lots of flukes. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, the whales were pretty mellow. We saw lots of dorsal fins from the surfacing whales, allowing us a good view of the variation in size and shape of those fins. We also saw a lot of flukes as the whales began their longer deeper dives. When we deployed the hydrophone on this trip, we were able to hear many different voices, but none of the singers’ voices was distinct, leading us to believe that a lot of the activity was occurring further off shore. Mahalo and have a great weekend, Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: In Sept. 2013, Dianne Nyad completed a record breaking 110 mile swim from Cuba to Florida – but in the Humpback world, that’s nothing. Migration between Alaska and Hawaii is around 3500 miles. But Humpbacks can swim even further than that. In 2001, a Norwegian tourist snapped a photo of a female Humpback in breeding grounds off the coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. When he found the photo again in 2010 and posted it, researchers were able to match the flukes to a photo they had taken of the SAME whale in breeding grounds off the coast of Brazil — which means she had swum more than 6000 miles! Researchers aren’t sure what motivated the whale to swim across the Atlantic– until this whale was identified in both places, it was assumed that Humpbacks only travelled across latitudes, not longitudes. Which just goes to show you…we still have a LOT to learn.

Weekend Whale Recap

Aloha,
On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise we got to see some interspecies interaction. Shortly after exiting Anaeho’omalu Bay, we saw a lot of splashing just south of us. It turned out that a competitive pod of 6 whales were creating most of the splashes – but right in the middle of all those whales was a pod of Spinner Dolphins. The whales were really active on the surface, tail lobbing, head lunging, pec slapping and peduncle throwing. The dolphins were doing their typical jumps and spins. When they heard us, some of the dolphins left the whales to surf our bow wake (giving us a great view of their swimming skills). We stayed with this mélange for most of the cruise. Towards the end, two of the whales actually broke away from the competition and made a b-line for us, surfacing at our bow and mugging us for awhile. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw a LOT of breaching in the distance, but were delighted when a Mom/Baby pod decided to come over to check us out.
On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales we saw spouts from lots of different whales, but our on-board naturalist Gary reports that it wasn’t till the end of the trip that we saw two very close breaches, causing all of us (guests and crew) to “lose our minds”! On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 6 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. When we stopped the boat to deploy the hydrophone we heard some very clear and loud sounds so we knew there were a few submerged whales close by. At the end of this cruise, we were surrounded by 6 or 7 (Captain Will thinks it was 6, but our naturalist Brooke counted 7) very big whales. The water was calm and crystal clear so we could see those beautiful turquoise reflections from their white pectoral fins as they swam along side of us.
On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we were lucky enough to witness the formation of a competitive pod consisting of 8 whales. On the 10:00 Cruise, we were approached by a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. We saw more than 20 whales during that cruise, and at least 8 breaches (sometimes it’s difficult to keep track). And finally, on Sunday’s Whales and Cocktails we got to watch a calf practice his breaching. He must have thought all the encouragement coming from our boat was interesting, so he came over to check us out before scurrying off to catch up to Mom.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: In the early part of the 19th century, whales were hunted for more than just their blubber (which was used primarily as lamp oil). The meat was used mainly for fertilizer, the baleen was used for umbrella and corset stays, and their organs were processed to extract vitamins.

Whales Everywhere on Tuesday Afternoon

Aloha,
The rainy weather caused us to cancel our early morning Whale Watches on Tuesday, but as soon as we could go out again, what we saw more than made up for the first part of the day. In fact, on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw so many different spouts as we were leaving the bay that we weren’t sure which direction to head (one of our favorite dilemmas)! Captain Shane decided to take us south and we were rewarded quickly with a very curious calf and his permissive Mom. Much to our delight, she let him investigate the boat at close range. We then saw a competitive pod of 6 whales charging across the surface. There was lots of trumpeting from these hard-breathing whales. After that, we saw another pod of Mom/Baby, and this time an escort surfaced with them. For a grand finale, Mom breached twice, and the baby got into the excitement too, breaching multiple times.Our onboard naturalist Angelica estimates that throughout the duration of the cruise we saw 35 different whales!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers have observed that Humpback calves are very playful, investigating all kinds of objects in their environment (including our boat), interacting with their moms, and even interacting with passing pods of dolphins. But for as many calves as we see in Hawaii during the winter, we never have observed the calves playing with each other. Though we’re not sure why this is, perhaps Mom won’t allow a calf that isn’t hers to approach because she doesn’t want to feed the wrong one.

Size Matters – At least it does for female Humpbacks!

Aloha,
We ran 3 Whale Watches yesterday under the cloudy skies. On the boat, we find it relaxing not to be in direct sunlight all day, and the whales seemed to agree with us. We saw lots of spouting and fluke dives (giving us some great shots of the unique white patterns on the ventral side of the whales’ tails). And as expected for mid-February Whale Watches, we saw lots of pods of Mom/Baby and almost all of these pods were accompanied by at least one escort. The Mom/Baby pods accompanied by more than one escort were moving much more quickly as the escorts jockeyed for the position closest to Mom. Yesterday was one of those days where no matter which direction we looked we could see spouts and splashes from surface active whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:Recent research documents that mature-sized female humpbacks associate almost exclusively with mature sized males, and have a significant preference for the largest of these males. Mature sized males, however, were less discriminating and would associate with all females regardless of size (though the males that associated with immature females were generally the smaller males). Finally, immature-sized males associate with immature-sized females. This “assortative paring” has rarely been documented in mammals – so why would whales use size as a determining factor for mate choice? Since males aren’t involved in taking care of their calves, and since research demonstrates that a bigger calf is much more likely to survive, size is much more important to a female Humpback. The sex differences in size preference by mature whales probably reflect the relatively high costs of mature females mating with small or immature males compared to the lower costs of mature males mating with small or immature females. Body size appears to influence the adoption of alternative mating tactics by males such that smaller mature males avoid the costs of competing for the highest-quality females and instead focus their attentions on smaller females that may or may not be mature.
And if it would help to sum all that up in layman’s terms….for female Humpbacks, size matters.

Mom and Baby Check us Out

Aloha,
We ran lots of Whale Watches this weekend, so here are some of the highlights. On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we were approached by three different Mom/Baby/Escort pods at different times. We also saw something that our on-board naturalist Mike had a difficult time describing. He said that just behind the boat, guests watched a whale do what looked like a “reverse spy-hop”. The whale came vertically up out of the water tail first, till almost half his body was above the surface and held that position for a three count. Mike offered to draw a diagram…but we think you get the idea without the picture!
On Saturday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, we got to see 3 breaches about 500 yards away from us and one just 100 yards away from us! Captain Will estimates we saw 25 different Humpbacks on this cruise, and lots of Mom/Baby/Escort pods.
On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw more than 25 different Humpbacks. Most of them seemed to be kind of tired – just surfacing to breath, but we did see a competitive pod in front of Mauna Lani who exchanged 10 breaches. Underwater, it must have been a different story, because when we deployed the hydrophone we heard a LOT of singing and vocalizing from quite a few whales. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, a Mom/Baby/Escort pod spent a lot of time with us. Baby was really small (and probably very young). We also saw an adult pec slap and tail lob very close by. And to top it all off, on our Sunday Whales and Cocktails, we spent considerable time with another Mom/Baby/Escort pod, but we also saw lots of peduncle throws and pec slaps from a pod of two adults nearby.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Being mammals, Humpbacks have belly buttons – in case you’re wondering, they’re “innies”.

Barnacles and Breaches

Aloha,
We ran 4 Whale Watch Cruises on Tuesday, and to quote Captain Patrick (who was on Alala from Kawaihae all day), “there were LOTS of whales all around”. We saw multiple Mom/Baby/Escort pods, multiple unescorted Mom/Baby pods, multiple competitive pods, and even a couple of lone whales. On days like Tuesday, it’s difficult to keep accurate counts of the number of surface displays we saw, so instead of reporting them, we’ll just have to say we saw a little of everything throughout the day, including breaches, tail lobs, head lunges, and peduncle throws. When the whales approached us, we were able to see some interesting scarring on some of their bodies, and when we got lucky enough to see close-up fluke dives, we could actually see the barnacles living on the edges of the whales tails. We did deploy our onboard hydrophones throughout the day, and we got to listen in to all the singing and vocalizations going on underwater too.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The barnacles called “Coronula diadema” live only on Humpback Whales, and they seem to prefer to live on areas of the whale where the water flow is consistent (chin and fins). Though researchers aren’t sure how the barnacle can even find a whale to live on, there is some speculation that because the barnacles are spawning during the winter in Hawaii, the whales here are swimming in “barnacle larvae soup”. When a whale swims by, those “baby” barnacles chemically sense it, and hop on where ever they can. They use their antennae as “feet’ and walk around the whale till they find a suitable spot (which can take quite a while… if the barnacle were the size of a person, the whale would be 20 miles long). Once they find a spot they like, they flip over and produce tube-shaped cavities in their shells that actually draw in prongs of growing whale skin, holding their position on the whale for life.

Active Adult Humpbacks and a Curious Calf

Aloha,
Based on the Humpback activity these days, you can sure tell it’s February! On Monday’s 10:00 Whale Watch, we had barely left the harbor when we saw 2 full breaches from what turned out to be a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Unlike our experiences the past few days, it was the adults who were most active, and baby just swam on the surface. After watching this pod for awhile, we headed over to a competitive pod of 5 whales where we heard lots of trumpeting (the sounds whales make when they’re breathing hard) and saw lots of tail lobs. As we headed back to the harbor, we found the same Mom/Baby/Escort pod we had seen in the beginning of the trip. This time, baby decided it was time to check us out, and we watched as he made his approach to the stern of the boat. He couldn’t get too close though before Mom decided to step in and guide this little guy away from us. To top it all off, a big pod (we estimated about 150) of Spinner Dolphins found us and decided our boat was worth playing with – many of them swam right over to ride our bow and stern wakes.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A baby whale, called a “calf” looks so small and cute when seen playing with her Mom. But everything is relative…when the calf is born, she can already be 10 to as much as 15 feet long, and she weighs 2000 to 3000 pounds! The calf is about 26 feet long when it’s weaned (at 10-11 months).

Cloud Cover Doesn’t Alter Activity Levels

Aloha,
Thursday morning we woke up to overcast skies, and on our 10:00 Whale Watch, one of the first questions a guest asked me was “What do the whales prefer? Sunshine or clouds?”. I’ve never read any research documenting surface activity levels based on cloud cover, but based on what we got to see on this cruise, I’d have to say the whales sure didn’t let the grey skies slow them down. We spent much of our time watching a competitive pod of 4 whales. The one in the lead (which we’re guessing was female) spent a lot of time at the surface pec slapping and tail lobbing. We got to see some great bubble trails from the primary escort (researchers suggest the primary escort blows bubbles as a way to mask the presence of the female from the males behind him), and a couple of times he lifted his head showing us an inflated throat (another aggressive move — inflation makes him look bigger to the other males). We also saw not one, not two, but 3 breaches from this pod…and all them were right in front of us. During the cruise, we also saw lots of other Humpbacks spouting, peduncle throwing (twice) and tail lobbing.
We went back out again at 12:30 with 50 keiki from Wai’aha School (and their parents and teachers). Though we were only on the dock for about 5 minutes between the trips, the weather changed entirely. The wind came up – and so did the whales! We saw lots of tail lobs and peduncle throws during this cruise. All told we saw more than two dozen whales. And when we deployed our hydrophone, we heard very loud clear songs.
On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, not only were we visited by a Mom/Baby/Escort pod, but we got to watch a tail lob competition between two adult whales.
Mahalo, and have a great weekend,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The smooth round flat spot we see on the water after a whale dives is called the “footprint”. Whalers thought it was caused by oil from the whale’s skin calming the surface of the water, but water samples have proven that theory to be false. When a whale dives (or kicks just below the surface) his flukes break the surface tension of the water and create a vertical wake, forming the circular footprint.