Day-12 –Whale watching

After getting dropped off in Lahaina from when we returned from our visit to Haleakalā we take our whale watch trip.  Here shortly after leaving the marina we get this view of the marina, town and mountains.

We see some whales in the distance where another boat is and head in that direction.  Still some distance away I take pictures, you know, just in case they decide to disappear when we get there.

Getting closer all the time, I see three whales come up to breath and blow water into the air.  Since this is my real first whale watch, I am excited.

As we get closer this whale does a fluke dive, bringing its tail out of the water for a deeper dive.

Oh wow!  This whale has one of its pectoral fins in the air and at the same time half of its tail fluke.  Shortly after this picture it slapped the pectoral fin on the water.  The result is a very big splash.

We are getting closer to the whales, but we have to keep a distance of at least 200 yards.  Here two whales, one behind the other, have come up for a blow and are on their way back down.

A tail is displayed during a fluke dive. 

Here two whales are exhibiting different behaviors.  One is doing a regular swim dive and the other seems to have its head up spying on the small boat near it.

Another fluke dive and it probably will not be the last.

These two whales are getting close to us and are performing synchronized swimming.

The whales have changed directions and they are coming directly towards us.  The captain has turned the engines off and we are just floating.  This whale is doing a fluke dive to go under us.

These two whales are very close to the boat; exciting.

The whales went under the boat and came up on the other side right in front of this smaller boat. 

This whale was just skimming along the top of the water.  It did this for about 3-5 minutes.  Strange, since this behavior seems to happen when they sleep.

A whale with its pectoral fin raised high above the water, just before it brought it down for a big slap on the water.

One of the whales is either doing a spy hop or a head slap, don’t know which and who cares, this is great!

This whale kept its tail up above water for about a minute.  I assume it was doing a head stand under the water.

I got this whale just before it did a tail slap.

This whale is lying on its side with half of its tail fluke out of the water and a pectoral fin also out.  Shortly after this picture the whale slapped the fin onto the water.  We could hear it from the boat.

Not long after the above whale, I was watching a pod of 5 or 6 whales and this one did a spy hop or a short breech.  In either case it was great to see it and get the picture.

A whale doing a dive with its tail up out of the water.  This one was close to us.

While I was watching other whales, this whale breeched right next to this small boat.  Someone called “breech”, but by the time I turned I only got the huge splash.  Look at the size of the splash compared to the boat.  Oh well, that is why people come out often to get the picture they want.  As usual I was looking in the wrong direction at the right time.

Oh my!  This whale just threw its tail out of the water and slammed it into the water.  I think this is called a peduncle slap where the whale throws its tail out of the water.  Look way in the background you can see two other blows from whales.

A sideways dive by this whale is unusual, at least from what I’ve seen up until now.

Our time is up and as we leave the whales behind I get one last shot of three whales in the distance, one starting a fluke up dive. 

We get back to the marina and tie up to the dock.  As we are leaving the boat I notice these two crafts.  The yellow one we’ve seen earlier, but the white one really looks like a submarine.  The sub does go under water and there are large windows across from seats to allow viewing.  We grab the next shuttle back to the shopping area next to the hotel where our day ends.  

I shot a few short videos while on the whale watching cruise.  It is a little shaky because of the rocking and rolling from the waves, but you'll get the idea of the cruise.  You can either click on the small video window or click on the "Whale Watching" link, both will work.

Whale Watching

 





Tomorrow we fly home and have a noon flight.