2-16-10

Some relatives and friends joined Alice and I on a whale watch and snorkel cruise today on the Hula Girl. This is a state of the art catamaran owned by some good friends, Peter and Inca. On the way up to Honoloa Bay we saw a number of whale pods and at one point had one come right at our bow making a sharp turn away from it at the last second. It was a great show as you could see the whole whale just below the surface and after its turn, its tail came out of the water for a moment. Unfortunately the 80mm lens I had was too tight of a viewing angle to capture the whole whale.

After snorkeling and a fantastic lunch cooked to order, we headed back to Kaanapali. The wind was light and pods of whales were seen all around. Just out of the bay, we saw a mother, calf and escort also headed south and not too far off the beach. The calf was working on its breaching skills and probably came out a couple dozen times. The 80 mm lens would have been pretty good for an adult sized whale but the small calf would have been much better viewed with a longer lens.

We left the calf and family behind at about Napili and encountered more pods as we continued on.