I am back from my whale watching marathon in Maui. I went on twelve whale watching trips and only one was a bit of a dud; the other eleven were filled with diverse whale action and behavior. I took one trip with Ultimate Whale Watch, three with Hawaii Ocean Rafting, and eight with Maui Adventure Cruises. Hawaii Ocean Rafting has the smallest raft and limits the number of passengers to seventeen. Maui Adventure Cruises has the largest raft, holds thirty-nine people, and has a small marine toilet available for emergencies. I witnessed no one experiencing sea sickness even though the seas were fairly rough one day; I have a tendency toward getting sea sick so I always take Dramamine before I head out.

On six of the trips we had extremely close encounters where one or more humpback whales swam under and/or around our boat. Being almost at water level on the rafts, we were able to view the whales below and around us with amazing clarity. Every captain adhered to the rules of not approaching within 100 yards of the whales and putting the boat in neutral when the whales approached the boat. On one trip we had three whales in a comp group surface within three yards of the boat; one even spy hopped (slowly raised its head out of the water to look at us) less than a yard from the boat. Some of the close encounters involved whales who were curious about our boat; they were aware of the boat and approached us.

On four different trips we witnessed double breaches by pairs of whales. We also saw double pec slaps, tail slaps, and head slaps. We saw a number of whales doing peduncle throws - one of the less common moves where the whale flings the lower third of its body out of the water. All of these behaviors occurred very close to the boat with one whale breaching less than fifty yards from us.

Comp groups were seen on a number of trips with the number of males ranging from three to eight; competitive behaviors like head lunges, bubble blowing, and other acts of aggression.

We also saw several baby whales with their mothers and escorts. The babies appeared healthy and active as their mothers challenged them to learn whale behaviors.

All of my trips were spent on rafts or zodiacs with locally-owned companies and highly-qualified naturalists and captains who strictly adhered to all rules and regulations. Each of the companies assisted with a whale disentanglement while we were there and succeeded in freeing a whale. Each company participates in whale research with one or more of the research teams based in Maui.