Whale Watching on Maui

People, if you read nothing else on this post, hear this message loud and clear:  Pacific Whale Foundation rocks.  If you want to go whale watching on Maui, go with them!

So, during the week leading up to our trip, as I lay dying in bed from a head cold, I spent a fair amount of time researching things we could do with the kids on Maui.  I had gone whale watching on our previous trip six years ago.  I loved it, mostly because of the water, the boat, the wind, and the waves.  I like boats.  I decided to see if the boys like boats as much as I do.  I made reservations for the six of us (Dave and Lynne included) to go whale watching on Monday morning at 8am.  I figured with the time change it would be no problem.  Ah, life.  It happens.

If you recall, it was Monday at around 3:30 am that Luke took his tumble down the tile stairs in our condo resulting in some major facial bruising and massive loss of sleep for this mom.  At 6 A.M. I called the Pacific Whale Foundation and explained our situation.  They happily changed our reservation to Wednesday morning at 9am.

Wednesday arrived and we headed to Ma'alaea Harbor to go on the very last whale watching cruise of the season with Pacific Whale Foundation.  We had heard earlier in the week that whales had moved on.  I was prepared for a complete dearth of whales, people.  At the same time, I won't lie, I was sitting on the bow of that boat praying my blessed guts out that we would see something awesome.  I couldn't help it.

A disclaimer:  I don't expect Jesus to answer these types of prayers.  He is not my genie in a bottle.  He is the Sovereign God of the Universe.  But I tell Him the deepest desires of my heart and acknowledge that sometimes they are selfish.  He gets it.  He gets me.  And He loves me.  And I never hold it against Him if He chooses something other than what I would choose.  I know He knows best.

Okay, having made that disclaimer, get ready for it.  About an hour into the cruise, we had spotted one whale quite a distance off.  The captain cruised slowly toward where we had seen the spout.  The law says that you must stay 100 meters away from these creatures, for their safety and yours.  While we waited for the whale to resurface, the naturalist on the microphone shared cool facts about Humpback Whales.  We enjoyed the sunshine.  And yes, I prayed.

Then it happened.  There was a HUGE splash to the side of the boat and we ALL saw this HUGE tail come up out of the water and crash down to the left.  It was NOT a tail slap.  It was a tail throw and if you ask me, it was WAY closer than 100 meters.  Every single person on board gasped or yelled in utter amazement and perhaps some fear, including the two naturalists, the research assistant and the captain.  The naturalist began to quickly explain this was a very uncommon thing to see.  It's called a peduncle throw and involves a fair amount of aggression on the whale's part.  It was awesome.  It was answer to prayer.  And I said thank you to Jesus.

Here are the pics along with a few more details.

A nice German gentleman took this picture.  And then we helped him pick a shirt for the 8 year old in his life by holding it up to our 8 year old.  Awesome.

 Pre-boarding picture.

On board!

Goofy.

Our less dramatic sighting

This is a picture of a peduncle throw...not the one we saw.  I didn't get a picture of that, but this is pretty much what we saw.  Big.  Splashy.  Lots of tail.

 I love this picture.

 Both boys got to help Laura, our naturalist throw the hydrophone into the water.  It was awesome.  We only heard very faint whale song live, but they had some recorded from earlier in the month that we were able to hear.

 The West Maui Mountains from the water.  Beautiful.

On the way back into the harbor, they did a Jr. Naturalist Program inside the cabin.  It was VERY cool and both boys enjoyed it.