Tag Archives: tail lob

Competition Heats Up

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Aloha,

Guests joining us on Thursday’s Wake up With the Whales got to see the whole gamut of competitive activities. It was pretty windy out there, but Captain Baker found us a competitive pod of 4 adult humpbacks (no calf). While we were watching, two more males joined the fray. We saw at least a dozen breaches, and too many head lunges, pectoral slaps and tail lobs to count. We also saw a few peduncle throws from the competing males (either that, or the peduncle throws were from the female trying to express her excitement…or irritation….while all this was going on, it was difficult to keep track of who was being chased and who was doing the chasing). We were able to keep up with this group on a parallel path for more than 45 minutes before we finally had to turn and head back to the bay. With less than a week left for our Whale Watch Season, we’re really treasuring these moments. And we’re pretty sure that the Humpbacks still remaining around Hawaii are treasuring every encounter they’re having with each other too!
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send a recap of the weekend’s sightings on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback 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 completely 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 a while… 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.

Great Weather to Whale Watch

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Aloha,

We had a lot of fun on our Tuesday Whale Watch Cruises. The weather was great, and we ran too many cruises to tell you what we saw on each…but suffice it to say, there was a lot of action. Pods of Mom and baby seemed to gravitate towards our idling boats all day. We all saw competitive pods charging around on the surface. As usual with a competitive pod, there was lots of head lunging and throat inflation to see, and lots of trumpeting to hear. When we deployed our hydrophone throughout the day, we got to enjoy a veritable symphony of whale songs. Most of the whales we were listening to were not extremely close, but once in awhile we were able to pick out a singer nearby. We did see breaching, tail lobbing, and peduncle throws throughout the day from both adult humpbacks and calves.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback 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, which 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.

Watching Baby Learn

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Aloha,

We saw lots of Mom/Baby/Escort pods on our Wake up With the Whales Cruises on Monday. Guests on Manu Iwa got to watch baby whale breach repeatedly. Guests on Seasmoke also got to watch an active calf breach a bunch of times. They also saw a couple of Manta Rays at the surface…and watched these rays breach too! When we began our 10:00 Whale Watch on Alala from Kawaihae, there wasn’t much going on at the surface. We saw some spouts and dorsal fins but not much else, so we decided to put the boat in idle and drop the hydrophone. What a treat! We got to hear some very loud and clear singing. We could tell by the volume that at least one of the singers was within a mile or so from us, and the others were a bit further away.. On the way back to the harbor, we found a cow/calf pod. Baby seemed to be intent on practicing her surface behaviors. We were delighted to see lots of little tail lobs, pirouettes, and a couple of breaches. All of our “oohs” and “ahhs” must have peaked her interest too, as she approached us to take a good look at what was making all that noise!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpbacks can maintain a consistent body temperature even when swimming in cold Alaskan waters. How do they do that? Besides their protective layer of blubber, they actually have something called a “counter current” circulatory system. Some arteries in their flippers, flukes, and dorsal fin are surrounded by veins, allowing some heat from the blood traveling through the arteries to be transferred to the venous blood returning to their hearts, instead of being lost to the environment.

Unusual Dolphin Joins Humpbacks

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Aloha,

Our Friday the 13th started off really lucky for guests on the Wake Up with the Whales Cruise. Not only did we see 3 different cow/calf/escort pods, but we got to see a double breach within about 100 feet of the boat. On the 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, we watched a competitive pod dissolve before our eyes. We stayed with the losing male for awhile, watching him tail lob more than 40 times. Then we went in search of the Mom/Baby and winning escort. We found them right on the wind line, and as soon as the wind moved in, the baby went crazy – breaching more than 30 times.
On Saturday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise, we found a couple different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. The first pod was swimming quietly and we didn’t want to disturb them, so we cruised past them to another pod where a baby was breaching repetitively. When we deployed the hydrophone on this cruise, we heard some very loud and clear sounds, so we know there was a lot going on below the surface too. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, Captain Mark found a large competitive pod of 8 or 9 whales (difficult to count) just south of Anaeho’omalu Bay. Before we got to them, we saw a lot of breaching going on, and while we watched, the pod split into two pods — half of whom stayed right around our boat, lunging and blowing bubbles for more than 30 minutes.
On Sunday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise, we saw 5 different Cow/Calf pods, lots of peduncle throws and lots of pec slaps. The highlight of the cruise though was watching an adult humpback breach fully out of the water about 150 feet behind our idling boat. On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, Captain Ryan reports an unusual sighting of a dolphin accompanying Mom Humpback and her calf just outside the break wall at the harbor. This lone dolphin was acting just like a whale, diving and surfacing in conjunction with the Humpbacks. The dolphin looked a lot like a Spinner, but his dorsal fin was a bit more hooked — maybe a juvenile Bottlenose? Guests got to watch this unusual trio for the entire duration of the trip…at one point, actually seeing all three sound together. Mom didn’t seem bothered by the dolphin’s presence, allowing her calf to interact with him…and even when another small competitive pod showed up and seemed to veer the dolphin away from Mom and her baby, the dolphin returned as soon as they left. As soon as I get a photo from Captain Ryan f this unusual dolphin, I’ll post it.
Hope your weekend was as great as ours!
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: When we say we heard LOUD singing, just how loud do we mean? Well, Humpback whales have been recorded producing sounds at around 185 decibels. Because the decibel scales use different references for sounds underwater than through the air, that’s the equivalent of about 123 decibels for us on the surface…which is as loud as the amplified music at a rock concert when you’re standing directly in front of a tower of speakers.

Rain Doesn’t Bother Whales- They’re Wet Anyway!

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Aloha,

How does that song go??? “Oh the weather outside was frightful, but the whales were just delightful…” Well, maybe that’s not the exact song, but it sure describes our Wednesday morning Whale Watch Cruise. On the Wake up With the Whales guests saw more than 15 whales and pretty much every surface behavior in the book except for a spyhop. At one point, Captain Will had the boat idling and glanced at the depth finder exclaiming “There are whales RIGHT under the boat”! We barely had time to react before 4 big adult humpbacks surfaced right next to us! We also got to see a big whale breach just 150 yards from us, and lost count watching another humpback tail lob repetitively in front of the Mauna Lani. But it wasn’t all adult humpbacks who were putting on a show…we saw 3 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods too, and each of these calves were joining in on the excitement.On the 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, guests saw 4 different competitive pods. These whales were acting pretty aggressively towards each other — we got to see lots of head lunges, peduncle throws, and bubble streams. We also had a few close encounters with whales surfacing just 100 feet from our idling boat. And though it was still drizzling at 3:00 pm, guests on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise were treated to quite the experience. There were whales spouting in every direction. We were mugged twice — the first time by a pod of adult whales, and the second time by a very curious calf and his mom. Baby circled us several times and even breached twice just 30 feet from our bow.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to research conducted in Japan, the peak estrus period for Humpbacks (i.e. when females are in heat) overall, is between the end of January and the end of February, but the peak estrus period for females with a calf appears to be several weeks later. Our frequent observations of pods of Mom and Baby who are accompanied by an escort at that time of year seem to support the validity of these findings. Although, we must take into account that many mature females without calves have already left Hawaii by the beginning of March, so perhaps the males are just accompanying any female they can find.

Singing and Breaching

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Aloha,

We started out the week with a double boat Wake Up with the Whales. Both Manu Iwa and Seasmoke departed from Anaeho’omalu Bay at around the same time, so you’d think all of us would have had the same experience. But of course, we didn’t…guests aboard both boats saw spouts from more than 2 dozen whales, but Captain Jeff chose to take Seasmoke out to a competitive pod about a mile outside of the Hilton. We got to see some great peduncle throws and a couple of pec slaps and tail lobs from this pod of 3. We then found two different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. Captain Will took Manu Iwa to the south, and guests also got to spend some quality time with a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Lots of whales around the boat were breaching — they weren’t super close, but we definitely got to see more than just the splash. And when each boat deployed our hydrophone, we got to hear some very clear and loud singing.
By the time we departed for the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, the wind had come up. We only were able to stay out for an hour, but we got to see 13 different whales (or splashes from the whales). As is usual on a very windy ocean there was lots of breaching, peduncle throwing and tail lobbing going on. Even though we saw a lot and it was really pretty exciting, since we did have to come in early we invited our guests to come back again for no charge.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Most Humpbacks are “right-handed”. Researchers looking at abrasions on Humpbacks’ jaws found more abrasions on the right jaw than on the left, and observed more “flippering” with the right flipper than with the left, suggesting a definite right-side preference among the Humpback population.

 

When a Mugging is a Good Thing

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Aloha,

We had a great weekend of whale watching. With so many cruises, there’s no way I can recap everything, but here are a few highlights. On Friday’s Wake up With the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke, we got to watch a pod of three whales twisting and turning around each other on the surface. For awhile, two of them were obviously belly to belly and then one was on top of the other — were they mating? On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise on Manu Iwa, we saw two different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. One of the escorts breached three times when he was just 30 feet from our idling boat. We also got mugged by the second pod for more than 30 minutes. All day long, we were seeing whale spouts in every direction.
On Saturday’s 8:00 am Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay, Captain Jake had a choice to make when we left the bay. We saw spouts in pretty much every direction, but we went south, and it paid off. We spent most of our time with a competitive pod of 4 whales who were charging around on the surface. We got to see the differences between the shapes of their flukes…and also got to see a bit of a fight. The whales didn’t seem to care that we were idling in the area as they milled about, changing directions, and even surfacing about 30 feet from us and charging towards us before diving. We also saw a whale from a different pod tail-lob 13 times before tiring out, and lots of lunges and peduncle throws from whales further in the distance. On the 12:30 Cruise, lucky guests got to see a whale breach 15 times right in front of the boat, and on the Whales and Cocktails, we were mugged for a good ten minutes by two curious whales who kept surfacing  just 10 feet away from our idling boat.
On each of Sunday’s cruises we saw spouts from more than 2 dozen Humpbacks. On Manu Iwa’s 8:00 Wake up with the Whales Cruise, we all enjoyed the antics of several different calves, but we were totally blown away when one baby approached the boat at the end of the charter. Not only did mom let him come within about 50 feet of us, but she surfaced too…and then one of our guests on the starboard bow noticed a shadow in the water. It turned out to be the escort who cruised under us just 10 feet below the surface. We all got a great look at him as he passed below the hulls. On our special 11:00 Educational Cruise, the Girl Scouts from Ke’eau, and some high school kids from HPA got to see lots of breaching, peduncle throwing and tail lobbing from some very energetic adult whales. We also got to see a couple of yearlings close up when they cruised by our idling boat.
Hope your weekend was as nice as ours!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to research conducted by the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, a Humpback’s heart beats an average of 40 bpm, but the whales do experience periods of tachycardia and bradycardia (faster than normal and slower than normal heart rates) during dives.

Playful Calves

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Aloha,

Tuesday morning was a great time to be on the water on the Kohala Coast! We took out two boats for our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay, and though we went different directions, guests on both cruises got to see a wide variety of surface behaviors from Humpbacks of all ages. On the Manu Iwa, we saw 25 different Humpbacks, including one Cow/Calf/Escort pod with a very active little calf. This guy did several tail lobs (which are really cute when you see a calf do them). We also got to see some whales that appeared to be as long as our boat (50′) — including one who surfaced about 25 yards from our idling boat, and then came up to get an even closer look. On Seasmoke, we also saw more than 20 different Humpbacks within 3/4 of a mile. We spent a considerable amount of time at idle, watching a Mom/Baby/Escort. We knew baby was pretty young because he still had a bent over dorsal fin. Mom looked to be pretty young herself (she was only about 35 feet long). Our second Mom/Baby/Escort pod came across us a little later in the cruise. Baby breached 5 times very close by (he kept trying to get closer), and we all got a great view of his ventral pleats (the “lines” we see on his belly). We also had several close encounters with solo whales who surfaced very close by at different times throughout the cruise.
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 200 gallons of milk she’d need each day to feed two calves!

elisa thompson

Swell time Despite the Swell

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Aloha,

Well the surf that came up on Thursday decided to stick around for most of the weekend, so we were forced to cancel a lot of our Whale Watch Cruises. But on the few cruises we did take out, it seemed that the whales were as happy to see us as we were to see them. For instance, on Saturday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke from Anaeho’omalu Bay, we got to see 7 breaches. But that wasn’t all. It seemed like no matter which way we looked, there was something going on at the surface — peduncle throws, tail lobs, pectoral slaps. Perhaps the best of all though, was when we found ourselves the object of interest for a Mom and her calf who decided to surface right next to us while we were all looking the other way. By Sunday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had some wind along with the swell, but we still got to see Mom and calf, and we also got to see a lone adult cruising along the surface.
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 genus name for the Humpback (Megaptera) describes the fin – the translation from Latin for Megaptera is “Big – Winged”)

Babies!

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Aloha,

On Monday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise out of Anaeho’omalu Bay, guests saw more than 20 different Humpbacks. A lot of the activity was between 1/2 of a mile to 1 mile away. We did find a Mom/Baby/Escort pod who chose to stay about 120 yards from us for quite awhile.. Baby was mostly hanging out on the surface, spouting and then diving down to mom. And as usual, both adults were surfacing much less frequently than the calf. Mom didn’t seem to be bothered by the presence of the escort — at least she didn’t do anything aggressive on the surface to indicate displeasure. Oh, and our onboard naturalist Jason reports that the boat was followed by a shark for awhile just outside of Anaeho’omalu Bay. Jason didn’t report the shark’s species though. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, upon leaving the bay, we spotted a small spout off the Hilton Waikoloa Village so headed that way. When we got there, we could see that baby was accompanied by Mom and an Escort but noticed a few other big whales around. These others must have spotted Mom too, because they began to give chase. Mom and baby both tail lobbed a few times and after diving, surfaced fairly close to us. The two newcomers to the pod must have gotten the message because they disappeared, and Mom, baby and the original escort headed off together.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales play host to all kinds of other animals. Besides the barnacles we often see on the Humpbacks’ flukes and other skin surfaces, the whales can also carry tape worms, lung worms, sinus flukes, and whale lice (which are related to skeleton shrimp) among others. Not all of these parasites actually harm the whale (which means that technically, they can’t really all be considered “parasites”). In fact, the barnacles might actually benefit the male Humpbacks who appear to use the sharp edges of the shells (perhaps inadvertently) as weapons during competitive battles.