Capturing the Moment

  Incredible whale breach coming right at us! Look closely, this is the pectoral fin of the mama whale, and the tail of the baby, up in the air at the same time. It was a wonderful week out here in Hawaii. After all the wind and rain of this past month, we finally got a week of no wind, beautiful sunshine, calm seas, clear waters, and plenty of wildlife. One morning, I decided to offer an early, sunrise whale watch to the guests. There had been plenty of whales around and I wanted to maximize their time out here. I wasn't too surprised when every single guests signed up. We were right off of Lahaina town on Maui, which coincidentally enough, was the whaling capital of Hawaii back in the 1800's. This is where hundreds of whaling ships would overwinter, before heading up to the North pacific to hunt whales. Now it is all about whale watching as hunting whales is illegal here. Breaching baby whale! Water cascading off the 15ft wide tail of a humpback whale. Our whale watch started...

Peak Whale Season in Maui  Mom and newborn Calf   The group this week has seen bow riding dolphins, an underwater ballet of manta rays, and swimming sea turtles…but the wildlife highlight of the week may have been the amazing humpback whales. February Hawaii is humpback whale central. Nearly 60% of the 23,000 North Pacific Humpback Whales are estimated to travel here to the Hawaiian islands during the winter. And while each individual whale may only stay a month or two, the most overlapping are here right now.   The guests saw whales from the hospitality suite on Molokai, and the sightings just never stopped from there. I told the guests to look for the 3 holy grails of whale watching here in Hawaii… a breaching whale, a brand new baby whale, and a competition pod. Breaching Whale!    Breaching means the whale is launching its 80,000lbs body out of the water.    Babies are born right here in the near shore waters and are about...