2015/03 Hawaii trip - Whale watching |
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Tuesday March 3rd
We had an absolutely beautiful clear morning, the best of the trip. It was a shame to be leaving Hilo-side on such a perfect day but we had a date Kona-side with Captain Dan and his whales. As we crossed the Saddle we could see both of the big volcanoes. Mauna Loa to our left is the bigger mountain in terms of bulk, but it’s so massive it just looks like a hill. Mauna Kea to our right is a little higher, actually rising over 30000 feet from the ocean floor, and we could see its snow cap and the many observatories that dot the summit.
It was hot and hazy on the Kona coast. To guide customers to his obscure mooring, Captain Dan Sweeney parks his van at the edge of the road; it has a model humpback whale on the roof. The boat takes over thirty passengers, with some on the bow and top deck, but we went into the shade to keep Sandie from burning up. We were heading a half hour up the coast to a shallow area that the humpbacks like. In places, the water had an amazing deep blue colour.
These are the same humpbacks we see off the coast of British Columbia. They come to BC and Alaska in the summer for feeding and 
go back to Hawaii in the winter for birthing and mating. They don’t eat while in Hawaii.
We were there for two hours and saw plenty of action with humpbacks breaching and spouting and tail wagging. Of 
course, whales don’t give any warning of when they are about to hurtle into the air, so we have relatively few pictures.
Along with the whales were bottlenose dolphins and smaller spinner dolphins. We all got to understand their name when one of the spinners shot into the air right next to the boat and did an airborne pirouette in front of us. Nobody got that one on camera!
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Whaling (5.34) |
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I took this landscape picture to show a white coral beach against the black lava background but realized later that it also showed how barren this side of the island appears from the sea.
Captain Dan obviously enjoys his job and the whales. He told us a story about diving with false killer whales. These
whales are similar to the true killer whales and have the same big body and teeth, but they are a different and probably rarer species. The whales came to check him out, and then one that had the remains of a big fish in its mouth came rushing at him very fast and came to dead stop a foot away from him. He was scared of course but took the fish from its mouth. The whale and its pod swam around him at high speed and then came back and stopped in front of him. He gave the fish back and they swam off, leaving him shaken and elated. He has a picture of the whale posing with the fish, so this 
odd story probably happened the way he told it.
We walked into nearby Honokohau Beach historic park, where the Hawaiians used to have fish traps and ponds. They built a wall along 
the beach with holes that would let small fish through into the ponds but not let them out when they grew bigger.
We had lunch on the beach and saw a couple of green turtles sunning themselves. The parks department had reconstructed one of these traps but it was a long walk away through deep sand on a very hot afternoon, and my back wasn’t up to it, so we missed that piece of history.
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Honokohau Beach (0.40) |
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On our way back Sandie spotted a mongoose standing up and gazing out over the beach. It was posed just like a South African meerkat; potentially a great picture but I was a split second too slow. I’ve found out since that meerkats are a kind of mongoose.
We set off back towards Hilo on the northern route this time. We drove along the coast and then across the lower reaches of Kohala Mountain to Waimea. This is the cattle ranching area of the island, with most of the grassy meadows belonging to the massive Parker Ranch. The weather was changing as we drove, with rainbows in Waimea and then heavy rain as we started down the Hamakua coast towards the gardens we’d visited. Thick clouds gave way to darkness so we didn’t see much scenery.
We had heavy rain all night with a warning of flash flooding, a dramatic forecast for a place that gets over a foot of rain in a normal month!