MUGGED.......and now for the rest of the story....

My apologies to all my Facebook friends for the obscure nature of my most recent series of posts.  I was mugged yesterday, and in the joyfulness of being mugged I forgot to mention that it was a good thing. No,...it was a GREAT thing. You see, here on Maui, being mugged means that Humpback Whales approached you and took an interest in you. Last night at twilight I was mugged by humpback whales for the first time. Words may not be sufficient to express the emotions I was feeling as I was being mugged, but words are my favorite tools, so I will try to explain.

Yesterday afternoon Thomas and I set out on the two person kayak to explore the Alaeloa area, south of Napili Bay. I mentioned to Thomas that I had not seen any whale spouts all day, as I had been indoors for hours. Within moments of saying that, Thomas spotted whale spout and pointed it out to me. When a whale breaths it leaves a distinct mark, like a small geyser, the wind catches it and it morphs into a faint mark, something like smoke. We call this "smoke on the water". So, when looking for whales we look for the spout or the smoke. The pod Thomas spotted looked to be  very large, perhaps six whales. They were at least a mile away. We took our time and paddled out about a mile offshore and shipped our paddles (this means we stopped paddling and rested the paddles on the gunwales of the boat, or in our lap), so that we were just sitting, drifting with the wind and current. For a long time we talked quietly, watching the many whale pods in the distance. Then behind me I heard the sounds of a whale breathing!  We turned to look, but there was no spout. I wondered to myself, "how far away can you hear a whale breath"? It turns out, you must be very close to hear it.

We turned the kayak to face the sound, and soon we saw them, perhaps 200 yards away, and heading towards us. At the angle of travel they were on , it looked like they would pass before us at a range of about 100 yards. By law humans are not allowed to intentionally approach closer than 100 yards, so we felt safe. We once again shipped our paddles, as the whales submerged. It looked to be a mother and baby. When next they surfaced the real action began, for there was a mature male in escort!

Now, let's take a moment to assure that  you know what a mature male is.  A mature humpback male can reach fifty feet in length and weigh in at 50 tons !  Lets say you are a human female and weigh in at 110 pounds, that would mean that you and 908 of your best friends, who all weighed 110 pounds, would be able to balance the scales with a mature male humpback whale, who weighs in at 100,000 pounds (50 tons).  THE ARE MASSIVE !

So, here we sit in our 12 foot canoe, watching as the pod submerges, thinking they will miss us by a safe margin. Thye did not. They changed course underwater and the next thing we saw was first the baby spout, then the Mom, and then....oh yes, you got it, the male. They were headed straight at us and only about 50 feet away !  The male was dead on target to hit us! We could see his nostrils open and close as he took a breath, his spout must have shot up 30 feet. We panicked and began to rapidly back paddle, as he dove under us, fearing his fluke might hit us and send us into the water. He submerged, as the Mom and baby had, and we were left in the smooth water footprint they left behind, it was a huge circle of mirror flat water in the midst of the chop and waves all around.

So try to imagine this. Let's say you are sitting in the park on a nice sunny day, and suddenly a big rig truck rises up out of the grass headed straight at you !  You might be a little scared, you heart starts racing, the adrenaline kicks in, you try to run away as fast as you can. Well, this was something like that!

The whales surfaced again about 100 yards away and stopped to just hang out. It was magical! the Mom and the escort male sank below the surface, but the baby began to frolic about, rolling over on his back, both pectoral fins up in the air, the white of her belly showing. She swam in circles, slapping the water with her pects, she did a headstand and showed us her fluke, she rolled on her side and waved to us. Next the Mom did a spyhop right next to the baby, she was looking at us! She submerged again and after some time the Mom floated to the surface and the baby lay across her head, belly to the sky, a perfect T-bone, the Mom pushing the baby through the water, the baby eventually slid off Moms head and into the water. Thomas and I had never seen or heard of this particular behavior.  Then suddenly the male floated to the surface between us and the Mom and baby, a massive mountain of black skin, water sheening off of him, his huge spout shooting to the heavens!  It was pretty clear what he was communicating to us. Slowly all they submerged, and in a few minutes we spotted the Mom and baby in the distance a good 200 yards off and headed away from us, there was no sign of the male. But then.....there he was!  The escort male had circle around behind us, swam directly under our kayak, and surfaced right in front of us 30 feet away. First we heard and saw his blow, and it was LOUD!  It startled me it was so close! Then his back rose up, as he dipped his head to sound. Then there it was, his fluke, in perfect silhouette against the sky, it rose up out of the water, hung there for a moment and slowly dipped below the surface. My heart was again racing, as his footprint engulfed us.

So, that is what it is like to be mugged by a humpback whale. My heart is racing even as I write this story. I cannot express properly what a thrill this experience was. It is easily in the top five most thrilling things to ever happen in my life.  May you soon come to Maui and allow us to get you mugged too!

Aloha from Kapalua,

Gene