Tag Archives: whale size

Our First Calf of the Season!

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Aloha,
Our Monday Whale Watches brought us some nice surprises. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw 4 different Humpbacks. A smallish whale seemed very interested in us and swam under the boat and surfaced right along side of us. We also saw several tail lobs from a different whale, and Captain Will reports seeing some spy hops as well. On our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae we all were very surprised when we saw 2 Humpbacks at the end of the trip south of the harbor. The surf was HUGE, but the water conditions were glassy so we could see spouts and activity from quite a distance. But the biggest surprise happened on our Whales & Cocktails Cruise…we had headed north from Anaeho’omalu towards Mauna Lani Bay where we found a pod of two Humpbacks…Mom and her very young calf! This is the first time this season that we’ve seen a calf! We watched this pair for about 20 minutes but didn’t want to bother them, so we left them and headed south again. We saw two more big whales spout and dive before we had to head back to the Bay.

 

 
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Mahalo, and Happy New Year!
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: We know Humpbacks are big animals, but it’s not until we have a CLOSE ENCOUNTER that we really appreciate how big they are. But Humpbacks are only the 5th largest of the great whales — Blue whales, Fin Whales, Grays, and Right Whales (including Bowheads) are all longer (on average)– and if you want to count the toothed whales in the list, Sperm Whales are longer too.

3 Pods of 2

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Aloha,
Our Tuesday Whale Watching was a lot of fun. Guests aboard our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke out of A-bay reported seeing 6 different whales, all of them in pods of two. Two of the pods consisted of a sub-adult and larger adult (not a cow/calf though) and one of the sub-adults breached right in front of the boat. The other sub-adult/adult pod cruised right next to the boat (possibly taking a look at us?). The other two whales we saw were spouting a bit further away.
Join Ocean Sports on one of our daily Whale Watch Cruises departing from two locations within the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Waters. For more information, call 886-6666 ext. 103 or visit hawaiioceansports.com.
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. 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.
Mahalo,
Captain Claire