Spinners Spin but Humpbacks Glow

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.

Whales and Dolphins Interact

Aloha,
On Tuesday’s Breakfast with the Whales we saw a LOT of breaching and most of it was within 100 yards! Of course we always stop our approach when we’re more than 100 yards away, but if the whales choose to come to us…Anyway, we also got to watch some pectoral slaps (which are really amazing to see, because a full-grown humpback has a 15 foot long pectoral fin (arm)). As we were watching all those whales breaching, a pod of Spinner Dolphins got involved in the action – and it appeared to us that the breaching Humpbacks were landing on top of the dolphins! Undoubtedly, that was more fun for us to watch than it was for the dolphins… On the 10:00 Trip, things quieted down a bit, but we still got a few close encounters and saw multiple breaches. On each trip, we deployed the hydrophone, but the sounds we heard were pretty faint. And on each trip we were able to see spouts and flukes from at least 15 different whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:When we see a Humpback wave his pectoral fin, it looks really floppy — as if there were no bones inside it at all. But if you were to x-ray that fin, surprisingly, you’d find all the same bones and joints that we have in our arms — all the way down to the smallest digits of our fingers. Though according to researcher Spencer Wilkie Tinker, Humpbacks are missing what would be the third finger on a human.

Incredible show and Humpback hands

Aloha,

Our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales cruise on Thursday encountered 17 different Humpbacks. We saw lots of smallish pods of 2 or 3 whales, but our favorite sighting by far was of a very, very small calf whose dorsal fin was still bent over. We also saw some splashing in the distance — could have been breaches or peduncle throws. We operated two different Whale Watch cruises at 10:00. On Alala, we saw 16 whales and 3 breaches. We encountered a competitive pod, saw two Cow/Calf pods, and heard some great singing when we deployed our hydrophone. On Manu Iwa, we had what our naturalist Meagan described as “an absolutely incredible show”!  We watched a competitive pod of 6 whales that drifted along with us for more than 45 minutes — lots of tail lobs, head and body lunges and even some aggressive bubble blowing. And on our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails cruise, we saw 8 different whales — mostly just surfacing and spouting, with a few breaches in the distance.

 

 

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: When we see a Humpback wave his pectoral fin, it looks really floppy — as if there were no bones inside it at all. But If you were to x-ray that fin, surprisingly, you’d find all the same bones and joints that we have in our arms — all the way down to the smallest digits of our fingers. Humpbacks are missing their third finger though.

 

Have a wonderful weekend — I’ll send the next report out on Monday!

Mahalo,

Captain Claire