Another day, another breathtaking video of a marine mammal encounter in the Hawaiian Islands. The new one posted below is of two humpback whales who decided to check out the Captain Zodiac Rafting Adventures watercraft returning to Kailua-Kona after a snorkeling trip to the Kealakekua Bay marine preserve on Jan. 10, according to CEO Linda Zabolski.
As soon as the first whale was seen diving “off in the distance, well beyond 100 yards,” Zabolski said, captain Colin Cornforth stopped the Zodiac and shut down its engines. “Everyone waited for the whale to surface in order to take a breath. There was no way of knowing where it would surface.”
But as first mate Maria Harvey caught on video below the water and crew member Kimie Miner captured above the water, a female whale surfaced right next to the Zodiac, “spy hopping” — the term for “basically being a curious animal and checking us out,” Zabolski explained. While the female used the Zodiac as a backscratcher , “possibly to remove barnacles acquired in Alaska and on the migration to Hawai‘i,” a male companion started circling around the first whale and the Zodiac, Zabolski said, adding, “The female stayed with our Zodiac for approximately 10-15 minutes, and then finally departed with the male companion.”
In her written statement describing the encounter, Zabolski emphasized that Captain Zodiac “respects and follows all NOAA laws and federal guidelines regarding encounters with marine mammals … our Zodiac engines remained shut off the entire time the whales were with the vessel, and not started up until the whales were seen swimming away and past 100 yards.”
The sequence of events is a little unclear in the six-and-a-half-minute video (with a dreamy song by Miner that’s repeated twice); if you want to skip to the most OMG moment in the video, fast-forward to 5:57. The initial splash of the whale creates a pixelated effect as if she’s trying to protect her privacy, and I also confess to not always being able to tell which end of the whale is up (is that a barnacle or an eyeball?)
But it doesn’t really matter with creatures the size of school buses. They’re huge, they’re awesome and they’re all over Hawai‘i right now. In the last two weeks, I easily spotted whales from the grounds of the Ko‘a Kea and Sheraton Kaua‘i hotels in Pō‘ipu and from balconies at Napili Kai in West Maui and the Fairmont Kea Lani on South Maui, not to mention much of the highway in between — the waters off the scenic viewpoint north of Ma‘alaea were particularly hopping Saturday, one of the official NOAA whale count days.
The spouting of a whale and her calf off broke the silence at the deserted beach of Polihua on Lāna‘i, while the sound of humpbacks doing full-body slaps on the water sounded like dynamite in the distance from the Hawaiian Ocean Sailing Canoe ride launched from Maui’s Polo Beach. The $30 ferry ride between Lahaina and Lāna‘i may be the best whale-watching bargain out there, this time of year (and yes, you can see whales from O‘ahu’s calmer shores, too.) The migratory mammoths start returning to Alaska in March and April.
Alas, I don’t have any dramatic video for my sightings — just a handful of photos that show black crescents in blue waters, or a faint spray above the waves. But just like the people in this Captain Zodiac video, I’ll never forget the joy and awe of witnessing these winter visitors to Hawai‘i.
Jeanne Cooper / Special to SFGate
A humpback whale spouts near the Hyatt Regency Maui in 2010.
Say “awe”: Whale video captures magic of Hawaiian season
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