We paid for a whale watching trip with Captain Dan McSweeny. They do whale watching tours from late December to March. The whales migrate to the warm waters of Hawaii in winter to mate and calve. This particular company offers an early morning and an afternoon excursion. We opted for the early morning trip since this tends to have the calmest waters. Jack can get quite sea sick so we wanted to avoid that as much as possible. He tried Bonanmine for the first time instead of Gravol or Dramamine. It worked really well and doesn’t seem to make you as sleepy.
The Sperm whale, False Killer whale, Pilot whale, and dolphins are all year round residents in the Hawaiian waters. Unfortunately the only marine life we got to see on our three hour boat ride were the spinner dolphins. We saw spinner dolphins almost everyday from the condo, but it was neat to see them right close up to the boat. If you don’t see any whales the company gives you a coupon for another free trip. The coupon never expires so you can come back years later and use it. Hopefully we will get to use it some time in the future and have better luck.
Despite not seeing any whales, the crew and Captain Dan were great. Dan is very involved in whale research. He has provided years worth of valuable whale data and information to help preserve the species. His website is www.ilovewhales.com.
We passed by lots of other marine craft while we were on our whale trip. There are some large boats that are nothing more than a giant party on the water. There were lots of fishing charters trying their luck on getting a big catch.
We spotted some humpback whales in the distance a few times from our condo property water edge. This was prior to taking the boat trip. We took the trip in hopes of getting a closer view. We were disappointed that we did not see any on the trip. On our last full day on the island we got a great surprise. A large group of humpback whales came into close view of the water edge of our condo.
There were several males putting on a show of tail and peck slapping. We also witnessed a few spy hops, this is when the whale comes straight up out of the water head first to take a look around.
Honokohau Harbor
Here are some pictures of Honokohau Harbor. The first pictures are the chairs you get strapped into when reeling in the big fish. The first chair looks like some sort of torture contraption, and we’re convinced the other one is a barber chair! If you have about $600 to spare you can go on a charter to try and catch Blue Marlin, Ahi, Mahi Mahi or Ono.
The wharfs at the marina are a great place to walk around and spot marine life. We saw a couple of turtles swimming around and some colourful fish. We were told if you come early in the morning when the fisherman are coming in you can buy the catch of the day right off the boats.
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