A Whale of a Tale

I just realized that I never did any sort of in depth blog about Maui. Don't worry, I won't go into a forever long dialogue, but this is pretty cool. If you are unfamiliar, in the winter the Humpback whales from Alaska migrate to Maui to breed. They are typically there from December through end of March, occasionally spilling over into a bit of April. Nate and I were not too terribly optimistic about spotting a whale since our arrival was a good 2 weeks after the official end of whale season.

Well.... forget that :) We went on a sailing/snorkel trip and saw 14 whales!!! It was amazing! After that we made it a point to sit on our balcony at least a half hour or so of each day and we saw at least 1-3 whales every day just by doing that. One day we even saw 10 whales while we just sat there on shore. It was truly amazing. Getting good pics of them without a telephoto lens is pretty darn tough, but I tried my best. We saw on several occasions, whales throwing themselves fully out of the water including a calf who did it over 10 times in a row after his mom showed him.... unfortunately they were too far away for any good pics, sorry!

This is a pod of 3 whales, a baby, it's mother and a male escort. The new mothers are the only ones still around at this time of year because they have to wait for their calves to be ready to make the journey back to Alaska.

Whale tail :) You will see a whale gliding along several times and then when you see the tail it means they are diving deep and won't be seen for awhile.