Tag Archives: muggings

So Many Muggings

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Aloha,
Lots to report from our Whale Watch Cruises this weekend, so as usual, I’ll just touch on the highlights. On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we started out with a breach right in front of the boat (that’s the sight everyone wants to see). But what really made our day was a whale who was acting slightly unusually, This whale swam right below the ocean’s surface – never diving – for more than 20 minutes. After 20 minutes of paralleling him 100 yards or so away, we stopped the boat, and the whale turned and came right toward us, still on the surface. We’re thinking this guy might have been curious about what was making all the noise on the boat, (we were encouraging him to keep approaching)! Our encouragement worked, because he surfaced near us and after that close encounter to check us out, he turned away again and resumed his swim north.
On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, a whale approached us again. This whale was apparently interested in us as he spy-hopped just 20 feet away from the boat. After that, he did a peduncle throw…and then breached just 50 feet away from us! Unfortunately we had to head back to the bay, but it wasn’t all bad, because we found several more whales right at the mouth of A’bay! On the 10:00 trip, most of the activity seemed to be to the south of the Bay. We found one whale who spy-hopped about 100 yards from us multiple times. We also encountered a pod of three who were swimming so hard they were trumpeting as they were spouting.
And on Sunday’s Whales & Cocktails, we were visited by a whale who wouldn’t leave us alone. Our guests named her “Pele” and she lived up to her volcanic moniker. She spent more than an hour RIGHT NEXT to the boat, swimming next to us, and underneath…and contorting her body. She spy-hopped to look at us…and after she finally moved off a bit to begin a sequence of deeper dives (showing us her beautiful flukes), each time she’d surface, she  would breach. It was absolutely incredible. All of us aboard were cheering for her like 3rd graders – a trip we’ll remember for a lifetime!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: We now know that not every Humpback who survives the summer season in Alaska will choose to migrate back next winter. Based on information compiled by our favorite researcher Chris Gabriele and her cohorts for the National Park Service in Glacier Bay and Icy Strait, at least 10 Humpbacks have been documented spending one winter off the coast of Sitka, and at least one off the coast of Juneau. We really don’t know how common this behavior is because almost no photographic identification research takes place in SE Alaska over the winter (and really, who can blame the researchers when there are such great opportunities to conduct their studies in sunny Hawaii during this time period?!).

Mugged for 40 minutes!

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Aloha,
Though it’s getting to the end of our Whale Watch Season, we had some incredible cruises and experiences this weekend. On Saturday’s10:00 Whale Watch, we saw about 18 whales all together, including three different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We had close encounters with two of the Mom/Baby/Escort pods, and also saw a competitive pod doing their usual aggressive posturing. On Saturday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise we motored around till we saw a breach. And while we were investigating the breacher, two different Mom/Baby/Escort pods found us! It was strange seeing them so close together, especially when each of these groups decided to spend time with us. We were mugged by these two pods for 40 minutes, and got to see a spy hop about 5 feet from the boat, and watch one of the calves breach 3 times about 20 feet from the boat. On the 10:00 Whale Watch on Sunday, we saw lots of different whales…lots of spouting and fluke dives too.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:In 2004, a company called Whale Power was founded by Dr.Frank Fish, Dr. Phil Watts and Stephen Dewar. The company builds fan blades shaped like a Humpback’s Pectoral Fins with tubercles on the leading edge. The ironically named Dr.Fish was inspired to develop the prototype after looking at a sculpture of a Humpback, and pondering how (or if) the bumps on the front of the whale’s fins would help him move efficiently through the water. He and his partners enlisted the help of the Navy and used their wind tunnel to discover that tubercles break up air (or water flow)…and now with the whale-inspired design, Whale Power’s turbine blades are not only more efficient than smooth blades, but they never stall out violently like smooth blades do, and thus don’t damage the turbine engines. The company’s motto… “A Million Years of Field Tests”.

Right Under Us!

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Aloha,
We started our Wednesday off on a nice, calm ocean, but the whales were anything but calm! On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw 2 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We stayed with each of them for quite awhile…and the calf from the second pod delighted us when she breached 3 times right next to the boat! We also saw pec slaps and tail lobs from different adults, and when we dropped the hydrophone, we heard some very clear songs. For a grand finale on this cruise, another pod of whales swam right under the boat. Captain Scotty turned off the motors, and was able to see the whales on our depth sounder…and to top it off, the whales then decided it would be a good idea to pop up  5 feet from the boat…we couldn’t believe our luck (or their curiosity). As the wind came up through the day, we saw lots more surface activities. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw multiple breaches, pec slaps and tail lobs. We also saw several peduncle throws and some other splashes (not sure which behaviors caused those…but whatever was going on was HUGE).
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’s not a lot of carbohydrates in a Humpback’s diet, he theorized that a Humpback’s liver and pancreas work differently than ours.

Muggings and Humpback Migration

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Aloha,
We had a fun weekend with the Humpbacks. On our Friday 10:00 am Whale Watch, we saw 5 whales, 6 tail lobs, 2 single pec slaps and one double pec slap. We watched a Mom and her baby for a long time, thinking we’d see an escort, but either he was able to wait us out, or they were unaccompanied. On our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails trip, we had a slow start…we were all looking in every direction to find the whales, but when we finally found them it was incredible! A pod of three (Cow/Calf/Escort) took a special interest in us, circling our boat and surfacing about 5 feet off the port side! On Saturday, guests aboard our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales saw 12 different whales. Most of them were loners…surfacing just to breathe as they swam along the coastline, but we did see 3 breaches in the distance. We also encountered a Cow/Calf/Escort pod that were joined by two other “wanna-be” escorts, who put on quite the surface chase. On our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails cruise we saw just 4 Humpbacks, but that was because we couldn’t move the boat for about 45 minutes as were being mugged by 2 whales! We got to look one of the whales in the eye, as he spy-hopped, looking at us. We saw some tail lobs and breaching in the distance on this trip too. On Sunday, guests aboard our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales trip saw 7 whales — 2 of whom swam right under us for more than 7 minutes (time seems to stop for us when that kind of stuff is going on). We also saw some tail lobbing in the distance and a couple of breaches.
Join Ocean Sports for a Whale Watch you’ll never forget. Call us at 886-6666 ext. 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com to reserve your adventure today.
Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Though no one is really sure how Humpback Whales are able to navigate so accurately through the open ocean to find Hawaii, research conducted on the migratory paths of a few South Atlantic and a few South Pacific Humpbacks between 2003 and 2007 did show that regardless of currents on the surface, storms and obstacles, the humpbacks never deviated more than about 5 degrees from their straight-line migratory paths. Researchers don’t think the whales are relying solely on the earth’s magnetic fields for navigation, since magnetism varies too widely to explain the straight paths the whales swim, and they also don’t think the whales are just using the sun (like many birds do) because the ocean wouldn’t provide an adequate frame of reference. It’s possible the whales rely on both those methods, combined with celestial markers. Or maybe the whales navigate by following the sounds of each other’s voices. Researchers are still working to solve the mystery.
Mahalo,
Captain Claire

Mugged by Whales

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Aloha,
All I can say about Thursday is “WOW”!  Our Thursday began with a triple boat Whale Watch Charter out of Kawaihae, so guests aboard Alala, Manu Iwa and Seasmoke saw practically the same activities. All three boats spent more than 70 minutes literally being mugged by whales! We all spotted competitive pods about a mile out of the harbor and began heading South to see them. The whales must have been looking forward to our arrival because when we all turned off our engines the whales took turns swimming RIGHT UNDERNEATH EACH BOAT! Seasmoke and Alala were watching a competitive pod of 4 adults, and the female kept rolling over onto her back (an evasive maneuver) just under the surface of the water. We actually got to look into a whale’s eye as he was looking at us while swimming under our stern. At one point, all of the guests on Seasmoke were so enthralled by the whales swimming right below our stern that all but two of us missed seeing a different whale breach 50 feet from our Port side. Guests on Manu Iwa saw a whale calf breach 3 times in a row close by, and all of us got to see a different pod of Cow/Calf and two escorts. When we deployed our hydrophones on the boats, the songs were so loud that we had to keep turning down the volume on the speakers! On the 3:00 Whales and Cocktails, we saw 12 whales — lots of tail lobs and peduncle throws, and again, we heard some loud singing when we deployed the hydrophone.
Join Ocean Sports for a whale watch you’ll never forget! Call us at 886-6666 ext. 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com to reserve your adventure today.
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.
Mahalo and have a wonderful weekend — I’ll send the next report out on Monday,
Captain Claire

Humpbacks watch us, Spinner Dolphins and lots of breaching!

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Aloha,
I hope you had as good a weekend as we did with our Humpback friends! Beginning with Friday, our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales cruise reports seeing 20 different whales, but our naturalist Adam had to tell me how amazed everyone was with the mugging they experienced! When ever a whale chooses to swim under one of our boats and watch us, none of us can believe our luck — and that’s exactly what happened during this cruise. There were some great photos taken, and some great memories made…guests also got to see a competitive pod and a few breaches. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, despite the somewhat blustery conditions, our naturalist Jonathan reports seeing 15 whales, 3 breaches, a competitive pod of 4 whales, 4 head lunges, 3 full-on body lunges, and, to top it all off…Spinner Dolphins! On Saturday, our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails cruise reports seeing just 5 whales, but they did witness a breach and some beautiful fluke sitings from sounding dives. On Sunday, our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales cruise reports seeing 10 whales, though they spent most of their time watching a Mom and her calf who chose to swim along side the boat for a lot of the cruise. They also saw 4 breaches. And the weekend ended with guests aboard our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails cruise seeing what Captain Baker can only describe as a “great show”! Sometimes there are so many whales around, and they’re displaying so much activity that we just can’t keep count of everything we see.
Join Ocean Sports and make some Whale Watching memories of your own. Call us at 886-6666 ext 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com to reserve your adventure today.
Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Do you know the easiest way to distinguish whether that big creature swimming rapidly towards you is a whale or a shark? Watch the way it swims…whales propel themselves through the water by moving their tails up and down vertically. Sharks and other fish move their tails from side to side. Aristotle was the first person to document this difference around 350 B.C. Hopefully you’ll never need to use this information for anything other than winning a trivia contest!
Mahalo and Aloha,
Captain Claire