Whale Watching

It is the migration period for humpback whales in Maui and they are here in such high concentrations that one is certain to see a blow every time they gaze out to sea.  It is one thing to stand on the beach and view these enormous creatures from a distant but it is completely different to stand on the deck of a boat and see them up close and personal (but only if they come near to the boat becasue there is a law limiting how closs a boat can actively get to a whale).  Though there are many different whale watching outfitters, we decided to join the Whale Foundation for nearer viewing.  It is a non profit organization that provides a plethora of different types of tours including whale watching, dolphin watching, snorkeling, and turtle viewing.  Below are a just a few examples of what we got to witness.

Flukes, or the tails of the whales, were a common sighting and indicate that the whale is diving down deep into the water.  The cow here represents the physical state most of the females with calves are in off of Maui.  Her spine is clearly visible because she has been depleting her stores of fat to nourish both herself and her new calf for the last several weeks.  Humpback whales do not feed here but come here to birth their calves and mate.  This cow and her calf will soon leave the Hawaiian islands for the frigid but also food-filled waters of Alaska.  

This is a humpback whale calf exercising its young muscles.  We witnessed the calf breach half of a dozen times within a fifteen minute period.  Swimming with it were mom and a primary escort.  The primary escort is a bull that has faught within a competition group for the right to mate with the cow (if she will let him).  We observed several competition groups during our expedition.  It can be two or more males berreling into one another, breaching and slamming one another, and t-boning eachother in the hopes of gaining the primary escort position and the right to mate.  It's a spectacular sight, but even more spectacular is the evidence that whenever a bull becomes seriously injured, all of the other males immediately stop their antics and even hold the injured whale at the surface so that it can breathe.