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2007 Whale Photos - 12/29/07

Photos from the Hula Kai Whale Watch - Saturday

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Photos by CJ Kale Photography | visit website |

12/29/07 (Saturday)
Aloha and welcome aboard!
Today's whale watch can best be described in three words: "quality versus quantity".  By the time we left Keauhou Bay, the wind had reduced the ocean to white caps as far as the eye could see.   Before I get too far along, we had an apex predator visit the Hula Kai today.  Coming in from the pelagic depths was a Tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier).  Talk about exciting!  Tiger sharks are quite abundant in Hawaiian waters, but we rarely see them.  They can get up to 14ft and weigh as much as 2000lbs.  They are the only living member of the genus, Galeocerdo.  What a way to start the afternoon excursion.  We didn't see anything until we were up on the lek.  After cruising for 10 to 15 minutes we spotted our first blow.  We had discovered a mom, calf, and escort.  At first we didn't think we were going to get much activity from these guys, but we couldn't have been more wrong!  All of a sudden mom breached...within seconds we had 40 tons of whale in the air and most people didn't see anything but the landing.  Then the escort breached, this time everyone was ready and all you could hear were cheers and cameras.  The two adults breached a total of 7 times; the calf did 5 spy-hops and 4 tail-lobs.  By now we were shut down and dead in the water, you could clearly see mom on her side and the calf was nursing...then mom started to slap her pectoral flipper against the surface of the water.  As all this activity was transpiring, out in front of the whales was an entourage of Pacific bottle nose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) playing with the calf and keeping it content.  What an awesome display of inter-species communication.  And for those lucky few on board the Hula Kai, they got the best whale show on the Kona Coast.  Come join us for an afternoon you won't soon forget....till then Aloha.
Jonathan Opey
Director, Hawai'i Marine Research Center 
| email Jonathan |

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