Aloha,

According to our naturalist, Nate, “the whales are here in full force!”, and Tuesday’s Whale Watches are proof! Guests aboard our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales cruise started their morning with plenty of whale sightings — by the end of the trip, they had seen 8 whales multiple times, but spent most of their time watching a pod of 3 whales interacting with each other. The whales performed some tail lobs, and some head lunges, and lots of dives showing their flukes. Ryan, the naturalist aboard that trip said one of the Humpbacks had some very interesting “speckled” markings on the his or her tail. We’ll be looking for that whale again! At 10:00, guests saw 4 different Humpbacks, and a pod of Spinner Dolphins. When the captain deployed the hydrophone during the cruise, the singing was LOUD. And our 3:00 Whales & Cocktails trip began with a full breach about 60 yards from the boat. We were then accompanied for about 25 minutes by a competitive pod, who swam under the boat, “mugging” us several times. Guests saw 16 different whales during that trip and counted one whale performing 11 tail lobs a little ways in the distance.

Join Ocean Sports on any of our 3 daily Whale Watch Cruises and see the action for yourself. Call us at 886-6666 ext 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com for reservations. And if you want to keep an eye on the sightings trends, visit our Whale Watch Blog at www.bigislandwhalewatch.com.

Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: One of the best ways whale watchers have to identify individual Humpbacks is by the unique markings on the ventral (underside) of their flukes (tails). Currently, the National Marine Mammal Laboratory based in Seattle maintains a data base containing more than 30,000 photos of the North Pacific Humpbacks flukes, but other researchers, including those involved in the 3 season SPLASH (Structure of Populations, Levels of Abundance and Status of Humpbacks) project have also used these patterns to identify who’s who in the whale world and estimate population levels.