Between late October and early June, when someone along Hawaii’s shoreline yells, “Blow!” tourists immediately turn to gaze eagerly at the Pacific Ocean.
For two weeks, I was one of them. But I needed little prompting to scan the ocean for the stream of water and air that signals a whale at the surface. (A whale expels “blow” through a hole in its head, called a blowhole, when it surfaces to breathe.)
Blow can be seen – and sometimes heard – hundreds of yards offshore. Opportunities to see it abound, because whales must surface to breathe every 5 to 15 minutes.
But blow is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you see it and you know there’s a whale attached, you just have to see the whale.
Hawaii might seem like a long way to go to see some whales, but it’s the best place in the world for whale watchers to see the endangered North Pacific humpback. And it’s the only place in the country where the humpbacks reproduce.
About 60 percent of the humpback population – 1,500 to 2,000 – migrate to Hawaii from Alaska during the winter to mate, give birth and nurse their calves. They like the area’s warm, shallow and calm waters.
Despite all those whales congregating in one place, seeing one in its entirety is no easy feat. Every day of my vacation, the whales tempted me with a flash of a pectoral fin or a glimpse of a lumpy back arching in a dive (called a “round-out”).
I used binoculars to watch the objects of my obsession, but I didn’t take advantage of any of Hawaii’s whale-watching boat tours. (Although law dictates that boats can’t come within 100 yards of whales, no laws stop whales at times from coming close to the boats to look at the people.) Still, I soon discovered all a whale-watching enthusiast really needs is keen eyesight and patience.
And luck. My final day in Maui, I saw several whales thrust their massive bodies almost completely out of the water in a “breach.”
A breach is the ultimate in whale watching. (Actually, seeing a birth is, but nobody, not even marine biologists, has seen that.) About 200 yards offshore, a mother humpback – 45 tons of playful mammal – thrust her massive body almost completely out of the water in a nearly vertical leap before crashing back down on her side with a stupendous splash. Her baby, about 8 feet long and white-bellied, mimicked her three times.
After seeing such an incredible show of power and beauty, it was hard for me to believe that this magnificent creature was once almost wiped out by commercial whaling. By the early 1960s, its population, which once numbered 15,000, had dwindled to under 1,000.
But in 1965 humpback hunting was restricted internationally. (Two countries, Japan and Norway, hunt whales in defiance of these restrictions.) In the early 1970s, this fifth largest of whales got additional protection in U.S. waters under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
Although the humpback is still an endangered species, it’s impossible to say how long it will be protected from hunting. Whalers are making noises about revoking international protections.
So, if you ever get the chance, go to Hawaii to see these awesome creatures. While you still can.
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Want to help save the whales?
On the Web, contact World Wildlife Fund at www.wwf.org/action/lite/action/whales.htm. There, you can fill out a form to fax a message to the Scandinavian Tourist Board (212-983-5260) or to President Clinton (202-456-2461) asking him to urge the Norwegian and Japanese prime ministers to refrain from whaling.
How To Whale Watch closer To Home
If you can’t make it to Hawaii yet want to see humpback whales, check out “Whales,” the new Omnimax film at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The 50-minute film, which runs until October, follows a humpback whale and her calf as they migrate from Hawaii to Alaska. For reservations, call 773-684-1414.
