Tag Archives: spy hop

Mugged for 90 Minutes!

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Aloha,

We had great Humpback sightings all day on Thursday. On our 10:00 Signature Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we found a competitive pod of 4 whales — Mom and her baby, and two escorts competing to be just one escort. Mom did a good job of keeping her calf away from the two guys. She put her body between her calf and them…and we saw lots of lunging and a couple of peduncle throws from the competing males. According to Captain Baker, our Whales and Cocktails Cruise was “stellar”. It took us about 30 minutes to get out to three spouts we saw as we were leaving the bay.When we got to the whales, they acted VERY happy to see us. Mom, baby and escort spent 90 minutes right at our boat. If our arms were about 2 feet longer (and if it were legal), we could have touched them for most of the time! The whales were clearly looking at us from below the surface and above, spy hopping, and lifting their heads horizontally too. And it wasn’t just baby who was interested…the adults were right there with him. We saw a few peduncle throws from the escort and a few tail lobs too…We wondered what those whales must have been thinking, listening to all the shouts of excitement coming from that floating object in the middle of the ocean!
Have a great weekend…I’ll send out a recap of what we saw on Monday,
Mahalo,
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales (and, in fact, all Baleen Whales) demonstrate something called “reverse sexual size dimorphism”. This means that an adult female Humpback is larger than an adult male (by about 5%). Though researchers are not sure of the exact reason for the difference in size, they theorize that the increased size allows the female to store more reserves to feed and care for her calf, and also to give birth to a bigger calf who might have a better chance of survival than a smaller one. Average length for a fully grown female Humpback is around 45 feet. At her heaviest, she weighs 35 – 40 tons.

Close Up Action

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Aloha,

Our Monday Wake up with the Whales Cruise started out with sightings of lots of whales in the distance, but as the saying goes, “it’s not over till it’s over”. Towards the end of our cruise we got to see two tail lobbers, some pectoral slapping and 5 breaches all within a couple hundred yards of the boat. Guests on the 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae got to watch a competitive pod of 5 whales for most of the cruise. Though there were whales breaching and splashing everywhere, this group kept our attention. They were quiet at first, and then something spurred them to action and we got to see lots of peduncle throws from them. At one point, they dove under us, and surfaced within 100 feet. We got to see several spy hops within 50 feet of us. When we deployed the hydrophone we heard a symphony of singing too.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: When you see the spout from a whale, you’re actually looking at an interesting combination of things. Some of what you’re looking at is condensation from the whales’ lungs (the same thing you’re looking at when you see your own breath after exhaling in a cold environment); some is atomized ocean water (Humpbacks live in a wet world, and there’s always some of the ocean pooled on top of their blow holes when they surface); and…since Humpbacks don’t have cilia in their respiratory tracks (little hairs)…a lot of what you see (and occasionally feel) is actually mucus! Yuck!

Spy Hops!

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whalewatchoceansports1-1-14 - Diane Zander

Aloha,
We had a great day on the water on Thursday. With five different cruises just for Whale Watching, plus a couple of Snorkel Cruises thrown in, there’s way too much to report for one email, so I’ll just give you a few highlights. Though the surf was up today, the wind was very, very calm, allowing us to see for miles. There were lots of Humpbacks visible all day long — on our Wake up With the Whales Cruises (we took both Seasmoke and Manu Iwa out), we all saw a few breaches and lots of great fluke dives. On our Kid’s Educational Whale Watch Cruise, the kids (and parents and teachers from Wai’aha International Family School) got to see 3 spy hops about 100 yards from the boat. We also saw a pretty big peduncle throw. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise we had several close encounters with adult Humpbacks, and when we stopped the boat we could actually hear the whales singing through the hulls. After we were serenaded for several minutes, we decided to deploy the hydrophone and our close-by singer was certainly the star of the show. He was making some groaning, clicking, and squealing sounds that were new to us (along with the “whooop, whoop, whoooooop” sounds we were familiar with from last year. The best part was when the singing stopped briefly. We knew he was on the way up, and he surfaced just 50 yards from us!
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out a recap on Monday.
Claire
 

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Yesterday, I mentioned that researchers estimated a Humpback’s daily fish consumption during the summer season to be on the order of 2000 pounds per day. And if you do a quick Google search you’ll find that “fact” cited all over the place. Turns out that this may be just another example of how inaccurate information gets spread. Once a “fact” is listed in a book, it’s picked up on the internet and its spread can be exponential.

According to researcher Briana H. Witteveen and her colleagues who conducted a study to determine the effect of Humpback predation on fish abundance near Kodiak Alaska, based on the documented stomach contents of Humpbacks “processed” through whaling stations back in 1937, combined with estimates of actual suitable prey availability, an average size Humpback whale is eating more on the order of 800 pounds (or about 576,000 calories) of food each day.Does that seem like a lot of food to you?

 

Muggings and Spy Hops

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Aloha,

We had a Kona storm roll in to the island on Friday, so we had to cancel a bunch of our cruises…but we did get to go out a couple of times, and we got to see some pretty fun stuff. On our Friday Wake-up With the Whales, guests on Manu Iwa spent the first hour or so watching 10 different whales in pods of two just spouting and diving. We did get a few great fluke shots. But towards the end of the cruise, we were “mugged” by a sub-adult! This guy came right up to the boat, spy-hopped on the starboard side and looked at all of us. We were going crazy! Then he slid below the surface, swam underneath us and spy-hopped on the port side looking at all of us again! On Friday’s 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala we saw spouts from 14 different Humpbacks. Most were in pods of two, but we did see a few solo whales. Everyone seemed to be very relaxed, just surfacing, taking 3 or 4 breaths and diving. Most of the whales were on 15-17 minute dive cycles.
By Sunday, the ocean had calmed down a little, but it was still sort of bumpy out there. On our 8:00 Wake-up with the Whales, we saw 6 different Humpbacks, mostly just breathing and diving. Same thing on our 10:00 Whale Watch — we saw 10-12 different whales and they were all just spouting and diving.But on our mid-day private Whale Watch we got to see some breaching about 75 yards from the boat.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Spy hopping is one of the ways a Humpback can see what’s going on above the surface of the water. Because Humpbacks have really big heads proportionally, their eyes are about a third of the way down their bodies. When the whale spy hops, she rises slowly and vertically from the water, head first. If she’s a fully grown whale, the tip of her rostrum may be 15 feet above the surface before her eyes get there!Humpback Mugs Boat

Spy Hopping Calf and Bubble Blowing Adults

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Aloha,
On Wednesday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we got to see a baby whale playing around on the surface, rolling over, showing us his pec fins and spy hopping with his little mouth open. We also saw a competitive pod doing multiple “head stands” and tail lobs. On our 12:30 Whale Watch, we were accompanied most of the trip by a Mom/Baby/Escort pod who all surfaced near us multiple times and even accompanied us back to the bay. Then the wind came up — so it was a bit bumpy on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, but that didn’t stop us from having a fantastic Whale Watch. We took our time getting out of the bay, and finally came across a pod of Humpbacks who apparently decided it might be interesting to dive below our boat and blow some bubbles. Even with the late afternoon glare on the water, it was still possible see to these whales as they floated and swam below the surface. But the highlight of the trip had to have been when these whales surfaced right next to us, “mugging” us. As usual when it’s windy, we also saw lots of splashes from surface active whales a bit further away. We even saw a few tail lobs and pectoral slaps.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A distinguishing morphological (body) characteristic of the Humpback is the length of her pectoral fins. Their average length is 1/3rd the length of the Humpback’s body (approx. 15 feet). The species name for the Humpback (Megaptera) describes the fin – the translation from Latin for Megaptera is “Big – Winged”).

Female Humpbacks Communicate?

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Aloha,
On Wednesday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we got to watch about a dozen different Humpbacks. At first we were just watching a lot of spouting and fluke dives, but when Captain Will stopped the boat, a couple of very big whales surfaced right next to us – twice! Then, we were approached by a Mom with a very small calf (the calf’s dorsal fin hadn’t straightened up yet so we know he was young). After investigating us, they turned to swim away and the little guy did a half-breach. Our 10:00 Whale Watch began with a Mom and her baby coming over to see us. Right after that, we found a small competitive pod of 3 whales. These whales were really active on the surface, giving us a good view of tail lobs, head stands, and even a double spy-hop (making us wonder if the whales were looking at us or were more interested in how they looked to each other above the surface). We finally had to break away from all the action to head back to the harbor, but on the way back in we had whales surfacing 100 yards from us all around the boat. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, our onboard naturalist Mike reports seeing “plenty of whales”. He also reports hearing some great sounds from the hydrophone when it was deployed. But the most interesting part of the charter happened towards the end, when we were approached by two different Mom/Calf pods. The pods were about 20 feet apart, and both of them got very active – tail lobbing repetitively, causing us to question whether they were trying to communicate something urgent to each other or to us.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: We’ve never witnessed a Humpback taking care of two calves. We know she could conceive twins (and whalers occasionally would find twin fetuses) but we doubt she could carry twins to term. And even if she could, we really doubt she could produce the approximately 200 gallons of milk she’d need each day to feed two calves

Mom’s, Calves, and Escorts

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Aloha,
The weather returned to normal on Monday, and the Humpbacks were out in full force. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we were surprised by a calf that wanted to take a look at us. Mom and the Escort also surfaced close by. We got to see another Mom/baby pod on this trip as well as a few tail lobs and a spy hop from another big adult Humpback.
 On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we saw more than 20 different Humpbacks. Most of them were in pods of two, just cruising along the surface. We did see two different Mom/Baby pods and neither of them appeared to be accompanied by an escort. We also saw 3 pectoral slaps from a fairly young whale (not a calf – but this whale had a short “arm”).
We went out again in the afternoon, and this time we saw 10 different whales. We spent some time watching a small Mom and her calf, and were very surprised when Mom did a fluke dive. First of all, females with calves rarely lift their flukes when they dive – that’s the posture Humpbacks use to begin a longer deeper dive, and Mom doesn’t leave her baby near the surface unless she’s close by. The other reason we were surprised to see her flukes is that when she lifted her tail, we realized that she was the SAME whale we had seen a few days ago off of Anaeho’omalu Bay. The right side of her fluke had a chunk missing and it sure appeared to be an old injury from an encounter with an Orca. Since this whale was really small and accompanied by a very small calf we hadn’t seen the last time we saw her, we’re guessing this may be one of her first calves…and that she gave birth very recently. We’ll definitely be on the look out for her the next couple of days.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The most recent (2008) International Whaling Commission estimate of the total world-wide population of Humpbacks is between 112,000 and 180,000.

Did we see Humpbacks Mating?

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Aloha,
Thursday brought us some interesting whale sightings. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise we saw more than 20 different whales, but spent most of our time paralleling a competitive pod of 7 whales that included a Cow/Calf pair. These whales used our boat a lot (which was really exciting) diving back and forth underneath us. We also saw several breaches and tail lobs from some whales a bit further away. As if all that weren’t enough, we were accompanied by a pod of Spinner Dolphins on the way back to the bay.
On our 10:00 Whale Watch we watched lots of pods of two. Most of them were just cruising at the surface heading every which way…so Captain Baker decided to head to the south. We had several close encounters with whales spouting and surfacing right behind the boat and right along side, and we got to see multiple breaches and tail lobs from different whales within about 500 yards.. After cruising along for awhile, we decided to stop the boat and drop the hydrophone. We were delighted to hear several singers (we knew a few of them pretty close by since the sounds were so loud). While we were listening, two Humpbacks started interacting with each other just about 100 yards away. One of them spy hopped several times, but what was so interesting was the way in which these two whales were interacting. The spy hopper rolled on his/her dorsal side (back) just under the surface of the water, and we could see just the tips of her curled pectoral fins. Meanwhile, the other whale appeared to be floating just on top of the first whale, They did this several times, alternating with gentle pectoral slaps and sideways fluke dives (we could see just one half of the fluke). We really wished we could have seen what was going on below the surface!
Finally, on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we spent a lot of time watching a calf breaching over and over and over again. This little guy had energy to burn as he breached more than 20 times and threw in a few tail lobs for good measure.
Mahalo and have a great weekend,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though Humpbacks come to Hawaii primarily to have babies and make babies, and though researchers have watched them closely here since the early 1970’s, interestingly enough there are no documented observations of Humpbacks mating or calving! Those of us lucky enough to have been on today’s 10:00 Whale Watch left the boat wondering if what we were witnessing was Humpbacks mating!