Thursday, February 7th.Doug and I got up early this morning
5:30 Hawaii time - 9:30am Central Time. We made breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast before heading to Lahaina for our Whale Watch tour. We had to check in at 7:45 am with the tour starting at 8:15am.
We didn't even get out of the Lahaina Harbor before we saw a Mom and her calf. The ship "Ocean Discovery" (which holds about 150 people) can only be within 100 yards of a whale. We then went on with
our journey and saw several more whales from a distance. They were all doing various things to entertain us:Blow: whale spout
Breach: when a whale propels itself completely out of the water.
Peduncle Arch: when a whale takes it's body high out of the water.
Fluke Up Dive: when a whale brings its tail out of the water.
Pec Slap: when a whale rolls sideways and slaps its 15 foot pectoral fin on the water.
Spy Hop: when a whale rises straight out of the water, showing its head
and eyes.Peduncle Throw: when the whales rear portion is thrown out of the water and slams down on the water.
Head Slap: when a whale lunges head first out of the water (about 20 feet)
Tail Slap: forceful slap of a tail against the water.
But the best part of this whale watch, was finding 2 playful juvenile males, approximately 3 yrs old who found the boat curious. Remember the boat cannot get within 100 yards of them. The boat was stopped to watch them and they swam right up to the boat, showing off by "blowing, slapping,
laying on their backs, etc... These pictures are all taken right next to the boat with no zoom lens. At one point the whales actually swam underneath the boat and came out the other side.It was the coolest thing I've ever seen!
Not only did we get to see whales, we saw a few dolphins swimming with the whales. AWESOME!!!!
SPY HOP is above
http://www.pacificwhale.org/
1 comment:
i can't believe you are making blog updates while on vacation! don't you have something to do....i don't know....like sit by the beach!
Post a Comment