Tag Archives: whale calf

Baby Rides Along

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Aloha,
The whale action is still going strong! On our 10:00 Whale Watch we saw more than a dozen whales. We had a few close encounters with different Mom/Calf/Escort pods, and saw some breaches a little ways from the boat. Of course our favorite sight is watching a calf watch us, and we did get to see that during the trip. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw a Mom and her Calf just as we left the bay. Mom was being chased by an escort, and she put her baby out in front (so baby could “ride along” on the pressure wave she created as she swam away from the escort). After that, we found another Mom/Calf pod…and this time, we got to see the baby breach. We also saw a few peduncle throws and some tail lobs from various other adult Humpbacks throughout the trip.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: The Humpbacks we see off Hawaii’s coastlines travel quite a bit between the islands, but researchers have yet to observe a directional trend. In other words, some whales travel North to South, some South to North, and some travel back and forth…a lot like our human visitors. 

Breach! Breach!

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Aloha,
On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw a couple of different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. Lately, we’ve been noticing that our Mom whales have been allowing their curious calves to approach the boat for an investigation, and that’s exactly what happened today. We had two close encounters from two different calves…of course where the calf goes, Mom is close to follow, and each Mom let her calf hang out with us for a little while. We also found a competitive pod with 2 escorts, a Mom, and her calf. One of the escorts in this pod was acting pretty aggressively with lots of trumpeting. There were too many breaches, tail lobs, head lunges and peduncle throws from this pod to even keep track. We went back out again from
10:00 – 12:30, and from 12:30 – 2:30. During the course of these two trips we saw more than 35 Humpbacks. On the first trip, we saw one Mom/Baby pod who did come right up to the boat. We also saw quite a bit of tail lobbing and a few peduncle throws, and for the grand finale…a full breach very close by. On the second trip, the whales were a little quieter, but we did get to see another close-by breach.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the weekend recap on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to researchers, the sleep process for a Humpback is most likely very similar to how their little toothed cousins, the dolphins, sleep. EEG readings from sleeping bottlenose dolphins show that the dolphins shut down half their brains at a time to rest. The active half presumably is monitoring breathing and perhaps scanning the surroundings for predators. Bottlenose dolphins sleep approximately 33% of the day, but stay asleep for only a couple of hours at a time.

Right Under Us!

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Aloha,
We started our Wednesday off on a nice, calm ocean, but the whales were anything but calm! On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw 2 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We stayed with each of them for quite awhile…and the calf from the second pod delighted us when she breached 3 times right next to the boat! We also saw pec slaps and tail lobs from different adults, and when we dropped the hydrophone, we heard some very clear songs. For a grand finale on this cruise, another pod of whales swam right under the boat. Captain Scotty turned off the motors, and was able to see the whales on our depth sounder…and to top it off, the whales then decided it would be a good idea to pop up  5 feet from the boat…we couldn’t believe our luck (or their curiosity). As the wind came up through the day, we saw lots more surface activities. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw multiple breaches, pec slaps and tail lobs. We also saw several peduncle throws and some other splashes (not sure which behaviors caused those…but whatever was going on was HUGE).
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: In 1919, R.G. Meyers, who was working towards his PhD in Chemistry at Stanford University, conducted a chemical analysis of Humpback whale blood collected from the thoracic cavity of a whale killed in Monterey Bay. He found that the Humpback’s total cholesterol level was similar to a healthy human’s, but the glucose level was 4 times what’s considered a “healthy” level for a human. Since there’s not a lot of carbohydrates in a Humpback’s diet, he theorized that a Humpback’s liver and pancreas work differently than ours.

Triple Breach…and that was just the beginning….

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Aloha,
Monday was another windy day, but we had lots of fun on the water. On our 12:30 Whale Watch, we saw about 30 different whales including 5 different Moms with their babies in tow. This trip started with a spectacular triple breach from a pod of Mom/Baby/Escort, and the breaching just kept going on. We watched a calf breach over and over and over and over…too  many times to count. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw more than 20 different whales, including a Mom and calf who stayed within 10 feet of us for almost 20 minutes (we don’t dare move the boat when they’re that close…besides the fact that maneuvering within 100 yards of the whales is illegal, we wouldn’t want to do anything that would affect their behaviors). We also saw lots of breaches and tail lobbing from different whales in the distance. When the wind calmed down enough for us to drop the hydrophone, we heard some great sounds.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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. Tomorrow, I’ll explain how Humpbacks keep their cool in Hawaiian waters.

Curious Calves All Weekend Long

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Aloha,
We had nice weekend of whale watching – too many trips to report everything, so I’ll just summarize the highlights, starting with Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales cruise where 3 adult humpbacks decided to surround our boat for close to 15 minutes. On Saturday’s 12:30 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we got to watch an interesting interaction between Mom and her baby. The calf breached about 10 times before mom did a big peduncle throw landing her tail just about on top of the calf…was Mom trying to tell her baby “enough! settle down!”?. We also saw some beautiful fluke dives from a different Cow/Calf/Escort pod – Mom’s flukes were all black, and the escort had some very distinct white patches on his flukes. On Saturday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise we saw 5 different Cow/Calf/Escort pods. We had two really, really close encounters when different escorts came right up along side the boat. We also saw some pretty vigorous tail lobbing and peduncle throws from a different pod. On Sunday, guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise saw lots of breaches in the wind, but were most excited by the Mom and calf who circled our boat for more than 20 minutes. We all got a very good look at these whales (and they got a very good look at us too)!. And a similar thing happened to us on the Sunday Whales and Cocktails Cruise when a Mom and her calf decided to spend a considerable amount of time right next to us. We also saw a series of tail lobs and a peduncle throw from a competitive pod, and lots of breaches but they were in the wind, and we decided it wasn’t worth it to travel out there to see those whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: At birth, a Humpback Whale Calf weighs betweeen 3% and 4% of his Mom’s weight. Interestingly, at birth, human babies average 4%-5% of their Mom’s weight.
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Close Encounters as the Wind Disappears

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Aloha,
We finally got to say “aloha” to the wind this morning – we experienced not a breath of wind on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, which made for some great whale sightings. We must have seen close to 30 different Humpbacks. We had 4 different close encounters with different pods of whales, saw 5 breaches (though those were further away) and also witnessed a couple of tail lobs and a couple of pectoral slaps. And because the wind died down, we were finally able to deploy the hydrophone, hearing some great clear singing. What a great way to start the day! On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 25 whales, including two pods of Cow/Calf/Escort. The first of those two pods came right over to the boat and we all got to see Mom balancing her baby on her rostrum, and the baby rolling over and slapping the water with his little pec fins. We went out again from Kawaihae at 12:30, and this time we saw 30 different whales including a pod of Mom/Baby/Escort close by. The escort must have breached 30 times! And then we saw another pod of Mom/Baby breaching in the distance – Mom would breach, followed by the calf breaching. Mom breached 3 times and the calf breached twice. And we finished the day on the Whales and Cocktails cruise, where once again, everywhere we looked we saw whales. We found a Mom/Baby/Escort pod right off the bat, and they seemed curious enough about us to approach us. We saw lots of breaching and when we deployed the hydrophone, we heard some very clear singing. All in all, it was a great day on the water.
Mahalo, and have a wonderful weekend. I’ll send out the next report on Monday!
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  A Humpback Whale doesn’t reach sexual maturity till it’s about 35 feet long (age 5 or 6 for females, and a little bit later for males). Researchers believe that most Humpbacks in the North Pacific don’t begin calving successfully till they’re at least 10 years old – the mean average is 11.8 years.

Windy Weekend Brings Plenty of Action

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Aloha,
The winds were up certainly strong past weekend, so we ended up having to cancel a few charters…but we were able to operate out of Anaeho’omalu  and here are some highlights from the past few days…On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw multiple competitive pods with lots of action consisting of many males swimming fast and banging into each other. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails, we enjoyed two very close encounters with two different Mom/Calf pods. We found the first pod just outside of the Bay. Baby breached 5 times before balancing precariously on Mom’s rostrum. Mom brought him right over to the boat and we all got a good look at each other! We found the second pod a little further south. This baby breached 3 times and head lunged twice before swimming our way. Again, Mom let him come right over to the boat and swim alongside before they both took off. On Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw 3 different Mom/Baby pods, and enjoyed watching yet another excited calf breach a few times. We also saw a couple of adult breaches (one fairly close by) and a couple of small competitive pods composed of smaller whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Though Humpback whales in different hemispheres migrate on opposite schedules (when it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere) and therefore are very unlikely to meet, no subspecies of Humpbacks are recognized genetically. In fact there has been some research done on maternal lineages that demonstrates relationships which exist in the present across hemispheric boundaries. This suggests that at one point (perhaps in the very distant past) there was some level of inter-hemispheric gene flow.

Humpbacks Dancing at the Surface

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Aloha,
Thursday seemed to be “Baby Day” on the Kohala Coast. On the Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw two different Cow/Calf pods, one with an escort (who seemed kind of out-of-breath, because we heard some trumpeting from him). We also saw a breach about 100 yards from the boat, and several pec slaps and peduncle throws. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 6 different Cow/Calf pods including one with 4 males trailing behind. And on our 12:30 Whale Watch, guests saw 5 different Cow/Calf pods. One of these consisted of a very small Mom and Baby accompanied by a pretty big escort…and another consisted of a pretty big Mom accompanied by 4 escorts who were really battling a lot to get to her. We watched as she continually pushed her baby away from the males, and we watched a lot of aggressive shoving from those escorts (including some bubble blowing, a few head lunges, a throat inflation, and a jaw clap). The highlight of that trip though was when we encountered three adult whales who seemed to be doing some pretty interesting  head down, flukes out of the water vertical dancing. They turned and twisted all around each other for minutes at a time, then they’d disappear, only to reappear and do it all over again.
Mahalo, and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the next report recapping the weekend activity on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:Those lines we see under the Humpback’s mouth are actually pleats that allow for the expansion of her mouth when she feeds. This expansion, combined with her ability to flex her jaws, allows her to hold up to 15,000 gallons of sea water in her mouth at one time — that’s the equivalent of 160,000 cans of Diet Pepsi (or Budweiser) in every gulp — of course, she doesn’t swallow the water she gulps…just the unlucky fish that had been swimming in it.