Whale Watching at Hanauma Bay

Hi readers. Yes, we are still alive. I really need to catch up on everything we did the last month in Hawaii. I'll try to do it chronologically for my sake.

First off, the end of March we went whale watching in Hanauma Bay. We (us and Ian) hiked out to the left side of the bay and sat on the rocky cliffs there (by the Toilet Bowl) It was with the whale conservation group so we stayed for 4 hours recording any activity we saw.

It was so windy the whole time! It was nice to have an umbrella to block the wind, until it broke.

We didn't see much action except at the beginning and then at the end. I was so happy though because seeing whales breach was on my list of things to do in Hawaii. We saw several spouts or blows, an up fluke dive (when the entire tail is above water as they dive down), a mom and baby breach, and then about 20 head slaps where the head and top half of their body comes out of the water and then slaps down. You might want to click on the pics to enlarge them. We didn't get a picture of them breaching because we weren't ready with our cameras. Ian got some better shots of all the head slaps.

It was a very cool experience to see how BIG they are. We learned some interesting facts about them. The director said these humpback whales are about the size of a school bus, or 45 feet long, and each square foot weighs 1 ton. The whales come from Alaska to have their babies and play in the warm water. There are less predators in the shallow waters around Hawaii so it's safer for their calves. They only eat when they are in Alaska the rest of the year.

If you're in Hawaii next Jan-March you should do this. It's the last Saturdays of those 3 months.