Sea Mammals

Seriously, is anything cooler than having a Whale Season (non-hunting of course). No? How about we throw that season in 85 degree weather in January and place it on a tropical island. Sold!
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Mammal 1- Whales
I grew up in New Hampshire. At the age of 6 I had surgery on my chest that would keep me bed ridden for two weeks and inactive for an entire summer. As a means of placating me before my chest got ripped open my parents took me on my first "whale watch" the day before. In New England whale watches require a long, cold boat ride out off Cape Ann. They were always fun, you could see the whales off in the distance while the boat pitched in the open Atlantic Ocean. Since then i have been on several and the experience is always about the same. You'd see a few whales off in the distance while trying not to toss up the $5 hotdog and Sunkist you downed on the two hour boat ride out. No more New England Whale watches.

My first inclination that Maui is different came as we were driving to West Maui from Hana. It was a lazy drive and Katie was reading about a light house where we could watch whales surface. Cool I thought as we were driving along. I daydreamed about seeing whales surfacing as ants against the horizon as Katie gripped my arm. "WHALE! WHALE! PULL OVER!!!! PULL OVER!!!!!!!!!!" div>
Sure enough just off the shore there were a couple of whales flopping around in the water with a boat hovering near to watch. Amazing. I couldn't believe our luck. What were the chances we'd see a whale right from the shore. Katie had never seen a whale and I all but had to handcuff her to keep her from grabbing the wheel and forcing me to pull over. I dodged traffic and snuck into a harbor to gather a view. After about fifteen minutes and about 57 pictures we pulled out of the harbor parking lot to complete the 20 minute drive to the hotel. In that 20 drive we saw two more whales... In subsequent days we saw them while sitting at the pool, while having cocktails, while watching the sunset, while eating dinner, and while driving to the airport on the way home.

While feeling the Humpback adrenaline rush we made plans to go on a whale watch the next day. The watch was just short of a miracle (only because one didn't swim up right next to our boat). We ended up following a pod of 10-12 whales. It was crazy. They were surfacing and flashing their tails literally in every direction. Katie almost passed out spinning around so many times... or maybe it was the 2 mai tais for $2 special they had on the boat. The company guiding the Whale Watch, the Pacific Whale Foundation (PWF) is a nonprofit foundation that study and educate people about whales. The ship we were on was equipped with an underwater microphone. It was crazy to listen to, sounded like a pack of dogs getting excited over the mailman... only speaking whale, not dog. (A few days later we went scuba diving. During our second dive, at about 25 feet below the surface, we heard the distant songs of humpback whales. Again very awesome.)

Tail shot

Soooo pretty

Whales surfacing while the microphone was in the water

About the most incredible encounter we had was on the return side of a snorkeling trip when we thought the fun was over, a mother whale, calf, and male escort surfaced close to the boat. The captain killed the engine and for 15 minutes the whales surfaced, dove and rolled around on the surface of the water and swam with 20 feet of the stern side of the boat. Unfortunately we were on the bow side but we got some sweet pics and left us with an great sense of whale fullfillment (we flying home later that day which made it that much apropos).

Momma whale and her calf

Mammal #2
Spinner Dolphins are apparently another abundant sea mammal (we unfortunately missed out on Monk Seals, the third sea mammal we wanted to see). We only saw them once while motoring to a snorkeling spot aboard a snorkeling/dolphin trip with the PWF (became a fav of ours). Spinner Dolphins are a type of bottlenose dolphin (according to Katie who heard something different than I did) , are about 5-6 feet long, and travel in pods of about 100. Did I mention they get their name by jumping out of the water and spinning around like a ballerinas. Although not as gracefully as a ballerina which makes it all the more entertaining. So as the boat spotted the pod, they kill the engine and sit. What followed was a swarm of about 100 dolphins scouting our boat and engulfing the water around us. After moving on, they lagged behind and followed us to our snorkeling spot. Unfortunately the showed up as we got out the water. No worries because we got to swim with turtles a couple of minutes later.

Spinner dolphins swimming with our boat

Show off!

Spinner dolphins showing off for the boat. The microphone was in the water at the time so the sounds you hear are the dolphins.

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