This entry was posted on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 8:49 pm and is filed under About, Adventure Cruises, History, Information, Migration, Sites, Snorkeling, Snuba, Watching, Whales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Today’s whale watch had an amazing and rare surprise in store for all aboard. Spinner dolphins! In all the many years I’ve been working on the water, spinners are a very rare occurrence. Usually seen between Maui and Lana’i, these animals came over with a juvenile humpback. We estimated the dolphin count to be about 35-40 animals. Spinners are the smallest dolphin in our county waters, topping out at a mere 6′11 for females and 7′9 for males. They can weigh 143 lbs. for females, and males, 172 lbs. Their lifespan is unknown, but researchers tell us they believe spinners live about 20 years. They have a very long rostrum that is dark and a black eye stripe that runs to the pectoral fin. Known for spinning and somersaults, these are a thrilling animal to watch. They can move very quickly and disappear as fast as they showed up, but today’s animals chose to hang with the humpback and cruise over to do some people watching. It is very interesting to note that when there are children aboard, it seems the dolphins tend to stay longer. Whether or not this is true, or just a naturalist’s imagination doesn’t really matter. Dolphins seem to be very curious of humans.
Today our animals stayed with us for more than 1/2 hour. They delighted, excited and thrilled some passengers who were moved to tears. The children squealed and giggled, running around the vessel trying to keep up with the dolphins movements. The dolphins circled, went under and up the other side, took off in another direction three different times, but then returned below the surface. Upon their return, they jumped, or simply showed up under the bowsprit, delighting all who waited there. I am neglecting to mention that in between disappearances of the dolphins, the juvenile whale (about 30′ long and silvery) would show up, her blows loud enough to make everyone jump. We had gotten used to hearing the little ‘puff’ sounding exhalations of the dolphins. We believe all these animals were enjoying themselves as much as we were enjoying the special gift nature gave us today.
Tomorrow we head out once again. Our hearts full, but expectations high. The weather report says sunny with light trades of 10-15 mph. We will have cameras and binoculars ready, even though this year we haven’t had to use binoculars yet! Whatever mother nature offers, we will gratefully accept.
