Whale Pictures!

While I have not received any comments on the last few postings, I am continuing to post because it serves as sort of a journal.

We went on a whale watch cruise yesterday. We chose the sunset cruise, which left at around 3:45 pm and got back to the harbor shortly before six. (The sun sets around 6:20 here in the Islands at this time of the year). While on the cruise Sue took a ton of pics and we were able to get some of the whales. We spent the entire cruise circling a mother whale, her baby, and the male escort. All of the pics you see here are the baby. Thanks to Sue's 10 megapixel camera we were able to crop some of the photos down enough so that you can see the whale close-up.

Sue and I are having an argument right now. She says that since she took the pictures she should get to post them. I say that since I brought the laptop to Hawaii and manipulated the photos I get to post them. After a knock-down confrontation, we agreed that I would post 3 and she would post the best 2. So here are the 3 that I get to post - you will have to go to Sue's blog to see the other 2.

Here is the baby whale, breaching out of the water.


This baby (they tell us he was male) was funny. He liked to poke his head up with his mouth open. We didn't get any shots with his mouth opening, but here is one with him poking his head out of the ocean. If you look closely, you can see the 2 holes that form his blow-hole.


This is the baby popping up away from us.


We spent the entire cruise circling this trio of whales and really enjoyed it. It would have been a little nicer if we had left them after about 1/2 the cruise and gone in search of a competition pod, but all in all we really enjoyed the cruise.

The company we went out with, Ultimate Whale Watch, is the same company we went with last year. We have gone out with 4-6 different companies, but I like this company best. We are in a 24 passenger zodiac boat that has a steel bottom. The buoyancy of the boat comes from the air-filled tubes that I sit on. There are also chairs (bench seats) for about 10-12 people, but I prefer to sit on the side. We are scheduled to go with them again on Monday and I will try to get Sue to take a photo of the "Wiki Wahine" (which in Hawaiian means "fast woman"). In the meantime, this image is from their home page:



Aloha!