Humpback Whales

Aloha…

The D.M. left a note for me on my last entry… about his desire to sail among Humpback whales… so… here we go:

We leave the harbor at Lahaina around noon… and sail towards the island of Molokai…

Within the first 15 minutes we start seeing the first blows…

Soon we are surrounded by whales… some in the distance… some very close by…

The sail is lowered… and the catamaran just drifts… and very shortly a whale approaches the boat…

She is on her side… with her pectoral fin slapping the water… perhaps a friendly greeting to us… as in all the years I have spent on these waters… I have never seen a whale show any sign of fear of man…

Eventually she swims off… and another whale appears… this one with her newborn keiki (baby)… and the way we know that the calf in new… is that it still has some pink on it…

The mother whale spy hops (head out of the water with her big eye looking at us)… guess she has decided to show off her new offspring to us… and again… no fear of us as they come within ten feet of the boat…

As the afternoon wears on… in the distance we see whales breaching… some slapping their tail flukes on the water… and having lowered a hydrophone into the water… we can hear the males singing…

Time for a mai-tai (the D.M.s idea not mine)…

Aloha oe…