Tag Archives: spy hop

Spy Hop, Breach and Baby

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Aloha,
On Thursday, the rain had passed but the ocean swell was still pretty big, however it was a nice day, and we were able to resume watching the whales. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw spouts everywhere. We watched a lot of the action from a distance (the swell wouldn’t allow us to approach) – but towards the end of the cruise, a couple of whales found us and surfaced very close by…and then one of them BREACHED! On our 10:00 Cruise, we were delighted to find a Mom/baby pod. The calf was really small, and like most babies, pretty playful and fun to watch. After spending time with this pod, we saw a few pectoral slaps from another whale. On our way back to the bay, we all got a great look at a Manta Ray who was feeding on the plankton near the surface…and then found a pod of Spinner Dolphins. And on the Whales & Cocktails Cruise, we started the trip, with not one – but TWO Manta Rays. After watching them for awhile, we headed out to sea and were surprised when two Humpbacks surfaced right next to us. They stayed with us for 45 minutes, diving under the boat only to surface right next to us on the other side when it was time for a spout. At one point we got to watch one of those whales watching us when it spy-hopped very close by.
Mahalo, and have a great weekend!
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:Being mammals, Humpback Moms feed their calves milk. But Humpback milk isn’t just any old milk — it’s extremely rich with a fat content of approximately 50%! Human milk contains only about 4.5% fat. Supposedly, Humpback milk tastes like “sweetened cod liver oil”…but I don’t know that from experience!

Who’s Watching Whom?

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Aloha,
The first Whale Watch Cruises of 2014 were really pretty incredible. Guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise saw more than 20 whales, but we focused our attention on a pod of two sub-adults. At first these two whales were acting kind of aggressively towards each other, blowing bubbles and shoving each other around a bit. When Captain Ryan turned off tour boat’s engines though, the whales seemed to get very curious about us. They spent 45 minutes diving and surfacing right next to the boat. At one point, one of the whales spy-hopped (that’s what we call it when the whale surfaces vertically, holding his head above the water and looking around). The spy-hop was so close to the bow of the boat that we could have reached out and touched him! We could clearly see his eyeball looking at us!  On our 10:00 Whale Watch saw at least a dozen different Humpbacks. We saw the Humpbacks doing lots of fluke dives (that’s the posture the whales use before beginning longer, deeper dives). We also got to see the outlines of a few whales just under the surface of the water..and when we dropped our hydrophone today, we heard a lot of loud, close-by singing and vocalizations.
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, her rostrum may be 15 feet above the surface before her eyes get there!

Object of Attention

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Aloha,
Our week got off to a great start! On our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, Captain Paul reports a very active competitive pod. There were 5 whales involved (at least while we were watching) and they were quite energetic. We all got to see countless pec slaps, tail lobs and peduncle throws, and these whales seemed to be most curious about our boat while it was making noise. When we turned the engines off to drift, the whales took the competition away from us, but as soon as we powered up, they turned back towards us. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise we found a pod of 7 medium size to really large whales. These whales were really interested in the boat and spent a long time right next to us. We saw several spy hops, lots of pec slaps, and got great views of each of them as they swam underneath the boat from port to starboard and back again. Normally when we see a pod of that many animals, we see lots of competition, and lots of aggression…but this pod just seemed to want to look at our boat.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:  Starting out as a way to pass time between whale sightings and hunts on the whaling ships in the mid18th century, “scrimshawing” (or the art of carving intricate designs on to whale teeth, bones and baleen) survived until the ban on commercial whaling went into effect. The etched designs were originally produced by sailors using sailing needles, and were colored with candle soot and tobacco juice to bring the designs into view. Today, hobbyists still create scrimshaw — but they use bones and tusks from non-endangered and non-protected animal species like camels, buffalo and even warthogs

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”.

Mugged, Spy Hops and a Shark

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Aloha,
We ran a lot of whale watches on Thursday, so I’ll just summarize some of the highlights. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we were mugged by a Mom and her baby who were being pursued by two escorts. We saw a couple of great double pec slaps as mom was lying on her back waving those pec fins (we’re pretty sure she was trying to give those escorts the message that she wanted nothing to do with them). Baby seemed to be having a lot of fun rolling around on Mom’s head and down her pectoral fins. At one point, the two of them came right up to the stern of the boat, and just under the surface, Mom rolled over on to her back and cradled the baby in between her pectoral fin and the left side of her body. Just after that, baby did a spy hop which included a 360 degree spin. This baby was really young – he was a very light shade of grey and had a very bent dorsal fin.
On the next cruise, we saw the same Mom and baby, and this time both of them breached multiple times  – first mom, then baby, then mom, then baby again (and baby kept going for awhile). Of course we can’t be certain that she was teaching him or that he was mimicking her, but it sure was interesting to watch. On the 12:30 cruise, we were mugged again by a different Mom/Calf/Escort pod. These whales stayed with the boat for about 15 minutes. We also saw several tail lobs and some peduncle throws about 500 yards away. As we were heading north to get back to the bay at the end of this cruise, we were passed by a competitive pod of 7 (or possibly 8 – it was impossible to count) BIG whales charging south. They came right by the boat, mostly motor boating (a behavior that describes their posture as they swim fast on the surface), but we also saw a few chin lifts and a couple of piggy backs as they passed us. Even if we were heading the same direction as they were, we’d never have been able to keep up with this pod.
And on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had close encounters with 3 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, and saw several tail lobs and peduncle throws about 500 yards away. Just north of the Bay we did see an unusual thing…we saw a very big shark cruise by. Our naturalist Mike wasn’t able to identify the species, but he did say it was really big!
Mahalo, and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the weekend recap on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s 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!

Spy Hops and Songs

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Aloha,
On Thursday’s Breakfast with the Whales, guests saw lots of whales surfacing, breathing and diving. It seemed like no matter which direction we looked, a whale was up. We also saw 4 breaches close to the boat and had a couple of nice close encounters with curious Humpbacks. Our Whales and Cocktails Cruise started off kind of slow, with lots of “blows and goes”, but then we found a Mom and her baby who wanted to play with the boat. They came right up to us and both of them spy hopped twice, clearly taking a look at us. We then found a couple of other whales who seemed very interested in us whenever we had the boat in gear and were travelling parallel to them. As soon as we turned the engines off and went into stealth mode, these whales would dive…so we’d start up again, which would bring them to the surface. It might have been a coincidence…but it sure seemed like they wanted to travel along side a moving boat, and quickly got bored with a quiet one! We ended the evening seeing a couple of breaches a little further away, and some HUGE peduncle throws close by.
Mahalo, and have a great weekend. I’ll send the next report out on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  Researchers studying the totally geographically isolated Arabian Sea Humpbacks have recently noted that these Humpbacks sing songs that are a whole level less complex than the songs Humpbacks in every other ocean of the world sing. Arabian Humpback songs are comprised of notes, making phrases, that are repeated in the same order, while other Humpbacks group the phrases into themes and the repeated themes comprise the song.
If I’m interpreting this correctly, the Arabian Humpbacks’ version of say “Old McDonald Had a Farm” would feature only one farm animal, and  they’d be singing about that one animal over and over and over. Humpbacks elsewhere would be able to use the structured verse to sing about lots of different animals on the farm…If there are any music theorists out there please help me out. Here’s a link to a story about the research….http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21592348.

Spy Hops!

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Aloha,
We ran 4 whale watch cruises on Monday, but the highlight of the day happened on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise where, according to our onboard naturalist Mike, we saw LOTS of whales. We watched some tail lobbing from about 100 yards away. We also saw a couple of mom/baby pods, and 4 different competitive pods. Mike also reported that on Sunday, guests aboard our Whales and Cocktails Cruise got to see a Humpback spy-hopping more than 20 times. The whale was so close to the boat that everyone aboard could see the whale’s ventral pleats, as s/he rose vertically from the water. And when the whale sounded, we could clearly see the barnacles living on the edge of the his/her flukes This whale spy-hopped repeatedly…so much so that we ended up having to come in late (we can’t move the boat when the whale is less than 100 yards from us)!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  The barnacles called “Coronula diadema” live only on Humpback Whales, and they seem to prefer to live on areas of the whale where the water flow is consistent (chin and fins). Though researchers aren’t sure how the barnacle can even find a whale to live on, there is some speculation that because the barnacles are spawning during the winter in Hawaii, the whales here are swimming in“barnacle larvae soup”. When a whale swims by, those “baby” barnacles chemically sense it, and hop on where ever they can. They use their antennae as“feet’ and walk around the whale till they find a suitable spot (which can take quite awhile…if the barnacle were the size of a person, the whale would be 20 miles long). Once they find a spot they like, they flip over and produce tube-shaped cavities in their shells that actually draw in prongs of growing whale skin, holding their position on the whale for life.

Spy Hopping!

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Aloha and Happy Valentines Day!
The Humpbacks showed us their love (or at the very least, their curiosity) on Thursday. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw lots of flukes, tail lobs and pecs slaps, but our on-board naturalist Angelica couldn’t get over the fact that a whale came right up to the boat and spy-hopped, clearly looking at us! This whale was accompanied by two others, who swam up too…and pec slapped. And if that weren’t enough…we saw two more close-up spy hops too, giving all onboard a trip to remember for the rest of our lives.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the next update on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  In honor of Valentines Day, here’s a fact about the Humpbacks’ hearts. A Humpback Whale has a big heart. An 80,000 pound whale’s heart averages just over 400 pounds, and according to research reported by the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, beats an average of somewhere between 10 and 30 beats per minute

Spy Hops, Breaches, and Lots of Singing

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Aloha,
Wednesday’s Whale Watches started out with a bang! On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw somewhere around 35 different whales. We saw 20 breaches (mostly out on the horizon – we can’t always see the animal but we can see the SPLASH). We also saw 3 spy hops, and lots of pec slaps and tail lobs. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we counted 20 different Humpbacks. We did see a competitive pod of 4 whales (our on-board naturalist Jonathan thinks they are the same individuals that we’ve been seeing for the last 3 days). We saw 2 breaches way on the horizon and a couple of head lunges closer in. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise on Manu Iwa, we saw about 20 whales, and enjoyed watching a mom with her little calf. The baby was pretty active, tail lobbing right next to Mom. We saw a bunch of breaches in the distance, but we couldn’t believe it when a whale breached 40 yards from the boat.  Seasmoke was also out on a Whales and Cocktails Cruise last night and guests aboard that boat saw about 15 different whales. Everyone was really excited when a mature Humpback surfaced right behind the boat and then swam along side. Guests also saw a lot of breaching about 400 yards away from the boat. When we deployed the hydrophone on this trip, the sounds we heard were loud and clear.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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, her rostrum may be 15 feet above the surface before her eyes get there!

Triple Breach and Spinner Dolphins

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Aloha,
Our crazy weather on Thursday meant we only got to run one Whale Watch. But what a Whale Watch it was! Guests aboard our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae Harbor saw 10 Humpbacks, and an astonishing 9 breaches. What’s even more astonishing was that 2 of those breaches were double breaches and one was a triple breach — Mom, her baby, and the escort breached all at the same time. It took a long time for our blood pressure to return to normal after that one. We also saw 2 spy hops, 10 tail lobs (from the calf) and some pec slapping. And when we deployed the hydrophone we could hear some very loud singing happening close by. And even though we weren’t on an official Whale Watch, we did run a Private Snorkel Sail from Anaeho’omalu where we saw 6 Humpbacks and a pod of about 100 Spinner Dolphins. We saw the dolphins at the beginning of our trip, and as soon as they heard us, they made a b-line for the boat. Guests loved watching the dolphins bow surf, and we got to see some great end-over-end spins.
Join Ocean Sports for a Whale Watch Adventure. Call us at 886-6666 ext. 103 or visit www.hawaiioceansports.com to reserve your spot today.
Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Researchers have observed that female Humpbacks don’t associate with each other at all while they’re in Hawaii. This is especially interesting in light of the fact that the females do associate with each other in Alaska — they’ll even feed cooperatively there. Since the females come here just to mate (and calve), we can postulate that female-female interaction must somehow get in the way of successful mating. Maybe groups of females would attract too many competitive males for safe mating to occur….what do you think?
Have a wonder weekend. I’ll send out the next report on Monday.
Mahalo,
Captain Claire