Whale Watching in Maui

Because my grandparents are awesome, they urged Jeff and I to get out for some alone time in Hawaii. If it were up to my grandpa, we would have gone on an all day whale watching and snorkeling expedition followed up by a full Hawaiian Luau in the evening. He was adamant about us experiencing everything the island had to offer.

Knowing that we wouldn't have time to do all of that, I looked through our options of a whale watching excursion. Most of them had a half day snorkeling trip added on, and we all know that snorkeling makes me a little anxious. Add that to the anxiety of being away from my boys, and I think I might have died in the middle of Molikini.  Don't get me wrong.  Snorkeling is awesome.  My body just doesn't understand that and involuntarily sends me in panic mode the entire time I'm in the water.  It's irrational.  And quite a sight to see I'm told.

Luckily I found a short whale watching option that I was able to book tickets for the next morning [our last day on the island].

So we got up and were off on our early morning date.

We knew it was the start of whale watching season in Maui, and we also knew that we were guaranteed to see some whales.  What we didn't expect was to see whales pretty much the entire hour and a half we were on the boat.

The name of the game was spotting the water spouts.  Once a few popped up, the captain would head the boat in that direction, and we'd hope to see whales coming to the surface.

Throughout our trip we saw A LOT of spouts.

Followed by the spouts we'd usually see whales coming the the surface about 10 minutes after the spout appeared.

Most the time we would catch of glimpse of the side of the whale.

In this picture you can see some of the barnacle looking things towards the face of the whale.  They aren't barnacles, but I have no clue what they are.  So barnacle-looking things they shall be.

What I really wanted to get a picture of was a whale tale.  Not too far into our trip I accomplished that.  It's amazing how these large animals just seemed to glide in and out of the water.  I was expecting thrashing and crashing, but it was very quiet and peaceful.

This picture was kind of cool because it caught the coloring of the whale on it's underside.  I think the picture is looking at the lower jaw from the bottom of the whale [if that makes any sense].

Another side:

And another whale tail out in the distance.

So here I am trying to view these whales through the view finder of my camera.  I didn't want to miss a thing.  But...spotting through your camera can be difficult.  While I was on one side of the boat, watching a group of whales together, Jeff and some other people saw a large whale breach on the other side.

Breaching is when the whale shoots it's whole body out of the water and makes a big splash.  There is no exact reason as why a whale breaches, but it is believed to be a show of dominance [as well to make a loud noise].  Since it was mating season, this made sense.

Anyway...I'd wander over to Jeff's side of the boat and try to see the breacher again, but then the group of whales on the other side would do something cool.  I'd keep going back and forth and keep missing the breaching whale.  Most the time I'd get there in time to just catch his splash.

I wanted to see a breach whale dang it!

And then my time came.

This fella here was an active one.  And also my first breach I ever saw.

How freaking cool is that?  And this:

Splash!

But he didn't stop there.  He then hung out on his side for awhile and slapped the water with his fin.

Our day was ending, and I felt like it was a really great excursion.  Something I'd definitely do again.

Thinking it couldn't have gone any better, while we were heading in I caught this:

EPIC!

And with that, our whale watching ended with a literal SPLASH!

Thanks to my Grandpa and Grandma for encouraging us to go out, and for watching the boys so that we'd have the opportunity to experience this!

And to top off the awesome morning we returned to the hotel to learn that the boys had been angels for my grandparents, and Carter had even put himself down for a nap under the coffee table.

The higher the booty is in the air, the more satisfying the sleep.