breaching whales Archives

The Maui Princess

I’d taken the Maui Princess Dinner Cruise before. The previous year my sister, my cousin and I had enjoyed the relaxing sunset cruise along the Maui Coast. It was a beautiful evening and I think its safe to say a good time was had by all. It wasn’t exciting but it was relaxing. So as I considered my options for my last two days in Hawaii, taking the cruise again seemed like a nice idea. My goal this trip was to relax and unwind. Not go on an adrenaline kick.

The Old Lady and the Newly Weds

I had to laugh when I was taken to my table. Single travelers must be a real headache to tour operators. Most of the tables were set for 4 people. What to do with a lone senior citizen? In my case they seated me with a young newly wed couple. The newly weds were on their honeymoon. They were good sports about sharing their table with me. The woman entertainer was quite good but it wasn’t long before she was upstaged.

The Humpback Escorts

This time of year is whale season. We’d just left the harbor when a pair of whales surfaced right next to us. One was clearly a mama humpback and the other was her baby. According to our captain the baby was probably only 2-3 weeks old. Next to Mama it looked tiny. The mama whale was teaching her baby to breach. It’s the way the baby gets in shape for the long journey back to Alaska. The pair stayed close all evening putting on quite the show. The baby never seemed to tire of his breaching acrobatics.

A Magical Night

The whale pair stayed with us the whole evening. At times the antics were so much fun even the crew stopped serving to watch. We were all seated on the top deck so there were no bad seats. I didn’t bring the camera so I had the freedom to just sit back and enjoy. Yes, I felt a pang to not be capturing the action but sometimes its nice to just be immersed in the experience.

It was Friday. My last day on Maui. My last chance for that elusive photo. I’ve had a lot of fun on my whirlwind visit but I still don’t have that Breaching whale photo.

Photo By Anna Smith

I’ve got one more chance. My plane isn’t leaving until 6:30 pm so I have time for 1 more whale watch.

This time I switched my approach. The 3 previous whale watches were on good sized catamarans. Maybe the boats were intimidating the whales. We can’t chase or encroach on the animals. The boats can’t approach closer than 100 yards. Now that doesn’t prevent the huge mammals from coming close to the boats but that means we are leaving it up to the animals.

Whales Nose

On one of the previous whale watching trips I’d spotted a tiny little boat that seemed to be attracting lots of attention from the whales. They were blowing and flipper slapping all around it. It was a pontoon raft style boat.

Ocean Raft

I found a flyer for Ocean Rafting and made sure I tracked them down in Lahaina Harbor. I got a spot on the 10 am trip.

Lahaina Booths

I had a death grip on the captain as I stepped onto the pontoon to the boat. We had bench seats to start out. Once out of the harbor we could move to the pontoons if we so choose. Standing up was also ok.

All Aboard

Man O War

Right away we saw action and the whales did come closer to the boat. Mostly we were looking at the wide backs as they cruised along with us.

whale back

It was a hazy day. Not the bright , sunny days we’d been having but the seas weren’t too rough. We did get splashed a few times as we flew over the water .

Humpback

At one point a whale dove right in front of us. The captain brought us up to a stop and killed the engine. We all held our breaths and listened. We could hear the whale song without any magnification! The captain said we were right above the whale that was doing the singing. They tossed in a hydrophone which brought in the whale song loud and clear. It was much cleaner than the one from yesterday, probably because we were so close we were just picking up the one whale.

Another Tail

As we passed the Queen Elizabeth, a cruise ship in Lahaina Harbor, we saw a mom and calf. The Mom dove giving us a nice shot of her flukes.

Cuise ship sighting

It was another successful whale search but still no breaches. The Captain said the whales breach every day but as I mentioned in the beginning, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Unlike trained whales at Sea World, they don’t jump on command.