Hear What We Heard – Humpbacks Sing

Aloha,

On Thursday’s Wake up with the Whales, we dropped the hydrophone and heard all sorts of interesting and different sounds and phrases…check it out here. But we also got to see a lot. Throughout the course of the cruise, we must have seen 30 different humpbacks including 4 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods and a couple of competitive pods. We got to watch two double breaches just 400 yards from the boat, and saw more single breaches than we could count a bit further away in different directions. We also got to see a couple of big adult Humpbacks tail lobbing and then slamming into each other at the surface.On the 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, we found a Mom/Baby/Escort right outside of the harbor. Baby had energy to burn and breached multiple, multiple times, while Mom came right up to the boat to take a look at us. On our Whales & Cocktails Cruise, we paralleled a competitive pod of 7 Humpbacks, staying with them for about 40 minutes. We saw lots of head lunges, peduncle throws and heard lots of trumpeting. We also saw three separate Mom/Baby/Escort pods, and watched a whole lot of tail lobbing going on from some other big adult humpbacks.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send a recap of our weekend whale watches out on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:There’s a time when a whale is still in its fetal stage that it’s covered in fur. By the time the calf is born, the fur has disappeared. Many researchers believe that this is another indication that whales have evolved from an animal with a common ancestor to a hippo. The idea that the stages of an animal’s fetal development reflect evolutionary development or “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny” was first proposed by Ernst Haeckel around 1900.

Diving, Spouting, and Tail Lobs

Aloha,

On Thursday, we ran two different Breakfast with the Whales Cruises from Anaeho’omalu using Seasmoke and Manu Iwa. Even though both of the boats left at roughly the same time and from the same location, guests on each got to see different activities.

On Manu Iwa’s Cruise, we got to watch lots of whales spouting. We saw a few breaches in the distance, but since the water was so calm we decided to stop the boat for awhile and deploy the hydrophone. We heard some very clear and very loud singing and vocalizing, so we knew there were a lot of whales underwater as well. We did get a close encounter on this cruise when a whale decided to surface about 20 yards from us. On Seasmoke’s Cruise, we spent considerable time with a whale our younger guests named “Flappy” due to his repetitive tail lobbing at close range. “Flappy” was part of a competitive pod who were all charging around on the surface nearby and breathing hard so we got to hear lots of trumpeting. As we made our way back to the bay, we got to see lots of other adult humpbacks as they surfaced, spouted, and dived (or “dove” – I looked it up and both of these past-tense forms of the word “dive” are correct) in every direction we looked. To top it off, we spent our last few minutes just outside the bay with a pod of Mom and her baby. Mom may have had an escort, but we weren’t able to stick around to see him surface.

Mahalo and have a great weekend!

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: There’s a time when a whale is still in its fetal stage that it’s covered in fur. By the time the calf is born, the fur has disappeared. Many researchers believe that this is another indication that whales have evolved from an animal with a common ancestor to a hippo. The idea that the stages of an animal’s fetal development reflect evolutionary development or “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny” was first proposed by Ernst Haeckel around 1900.

More Height of the Season Competition

Aloha,
We began our Monday Whale Watch with “tons of whales in all directions” (that’s according to our marine naturalist Angelica) sighted from the Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. She then gave us a more accurate estimate of a total of 36 whales seen throughout the cruise. We watched a Mom/Baby/Escort pod in about 60 feet of water… until we saw a competitive pod who showed us a few head lunges. We then found a pod of a couple of smaller whales, and watched them battle for awhile, seeing lots of tail lobs and peduncle throws. Just as we were returning to the bay, we saw a huge breach followed by some pec slaps (which looked to us as if the whale was waving “Aloha”). On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw about 20 different whales and lots of breaching in the distance. We watched a Mom/Baby/Escort pod hanging out on the surface. Mom was just kind of laying on her side, and the escort was swimming along just below her, but so close to the surface that we could see him really well. It was pretty windy out there, but when we were in the right position to deploy the hydrophone, we gave it a try and heard some very loud and clear songs.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: There’s a time when a whale is still in its fetal stage that it’s covered in fur. By the time the calf is born, the fur has disappeared. Many researchers believe that this is another indication that whales have evolved from an animal with a common ancestor to a hippo. The idea that the stages of an animal’s fetal development reflect evolutionary development or “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny” was first proposed by Ernst Haeckel around 1900.