Once he got the new boat, though, a nice twin-engine, catamaran style Glacier Bay, we were out almost every day, testing the equipment and checking out the wildlife. We’ve been so busy out on the water, that I haven’t had much time to write it all down. Finally, though, I’ve managed to process some great new humpback whales shots and create this blog entry.On Feb. 21, Masa, me, and Steve Drogin were out on the water for a full day of whale watching. I wrote about Steve in my blog called Dinner with Some Giants in the Industry 11/30/07. He’s one of our SeaPics.com photographers, and he has many great images of sharks, rays, monk seals and more on our site. Check them out if you have a chance.
Anyway, Steve was with us, enjoying Masa’s new boat and checking out the humpback whales. The whales were incredible that day, breaching all around us. It was really a photographer’s dream. Most days are not like this, as it’s not possible to predict where and when a whale will breach, so you have to be vigilant and a little lucky to get a great shot. On this day, though, getting the money shot was like rolling over in bed. The light was great and the whales kept breaching over and over, so we could position ourselves perfectly and get the shots we wanted.One of the great things about living in Hawaii is being able to see these amazing humpback whale breaches. If you live on the west coast of the U.S., you may be able to see gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus), but they aren’t known for the breaches and other above water activities performed by the humpbacks (Megaptera novaeangliae).
The playful behavior of humpback whales is well known and has even been mentioned in classic American literature. Herman Melville, using the character Ishmael as his narrator in Moby-Dick, said of the humpbacks that they are "the most gamesome of species and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white water than any other."He certainly got that right. Humpbacks must think they’re dolphins, a distant relative, though they’re at least 110 times heavier. They launch themselves out of the water, nearly clearing it, and flop onto the surface, usually on their back or side, creating a minor tsunami for nearby boats. They’re also known for tail slapping, pec slapping, peduncle throws, spy hopping and other behaviors.
Here’s a quick glossary of humpback whale behaviors, with links to images of the behavior on our SeaPics.com site:
breach – the whale launches most of its body out of the water and crashes onto the surface
lunge – a shallow breach where a male lunges aggressively towards a competitor
tail slap – the whale, with its body nearly vertical, facing down, slaps its tail repeatedly onto the surface of the water
pec slap – the whale, lying on its side, slaps its pectoral fin repeatedly against the surface of the water
peduncle throw – a powerful spin move where the whale thrusts its tail and lower body area across the surface of the water, throwing up a big spray
spy hop – the whale, curious about activity above the surface, assumes a vertical position with it’s head and eye above water so it can view the whale watchers!
Why do they do these behaviors? While we can’t interpret each behavior precisely, many of the slapping and lunging behaviors are presumed to be competitive displays by males, used to signal each other as they vie for the attention of females. Breaching, however, is performed by whales of both sexes and all ages, whether they’re alone or with others. It may have the practical use of shaking off barnacles, or it may be that the whales just like the sensation of leaving the water and crashing onto the surface. The image above left is of a peduncle throw.For me, personally, this was one of my best days ever for humpback whale photography. The reason for my confidence is that Steve Drogin lent me his telephoto lens, as he was trying out another one. For the first time, I was able to use an 80-400 vibration reduction lens, which made a huge difference in the kind of shots I could get.
Normally, when I’m out on the boat with Masa, his shots are always so much better than mine. Masa uses a 70-200/2.8 L Canon with a teleconverter, which makes it more than twice as powerful as the lens I own. At the safe distance we must maintain from the whales, his whale shots have always filled the frame and been beautifully in focus, while mine have been way too small. On this day, though, with Steve’s great lens, my shots were nearly filling the frame! The light was great, and the whales breached straight in front of us, over and over. At least on this occasion, my breaching whale shots are good enough to post on my blog. I still can’t compete with the world class photographers I represent at SeaPics.com, but I was really stoked to get some decent shots, as those of you who take photos for enjoyment can readily understand! Thanks, Steve, for the assist!That’s it for now, but I’ll have another blog up soon about more humpback whale excursions. I expect you’ll see that in a week or so.
Kona Sue
http://www.seapics.com
Masa Ushioda’s humpback whale photos at SeaPics.com
All humpback whale photos at SeaPics.com
Wikipedia entry on humpback whales
Links to stock photos of species mentioned in this blog. Please be patient! 10 seconds to load:
humpback whale
gray whale
After a marathon day with Wyland, the Artist, where we boated, swam and snorkeled all day, followed by an artist's reception at Wyland Galleries in the evening, Wyland was up and ready for more the next day! Wyland is a machine!
Dean's story of why he no longer lives in the Turks & Caicos, and how he ended up in Kona, Hawaii is a little long and personal, so I won't go into detail. I will say, however, that the story involves a stopover in Crete, where sirens sing to you and cure whatever ails you. Enough about that, and on to our adventures with Wyland!
As we headed north, Wyland said he wanted to stop and check out Turtle Pinnacle, one of Kona's better known dive sites. SeaPics.com has many photos of green sea turtles being cleaned by yellow tang and other reef fish, and most of them are from this spot. We have so many of these nice shots that divers visiting Kona tend to think sea turtles are always getting cleaned somewhere, waiting to be photographed. Well, the key to getting these great shots is to be at Turtle Pinnacle, a time-honored cleaning station. If you look for this anywhere else, you'll likely be disappointed.
As we searched the area, we stumbled upon a huge fishing net drifting in the ocean. The net was so large, we couldn't even attempt to retrieve it. Like an iceberg, the tip of it was at the surface, and the rest of it hung down, down, down, fading into the blue.
Finally, we spotted it and Masa dropped a line and caught a mahi mahi right away. When you catch a mahi mahi, it's common to leave the first one on the hook for a while, as strangely, the other mahi mahi will congregate around it. This happened in textbook fashion, and within minutes we had our second mahi mahi.
First, let me give you an introduction to Wyland. His name is Robert Wyland, but he goes by the name of Wyland, the Artist. You know, kind of like how I'm famous as Kona Sue, the Blogger. Only Wyland is known throughout the world for his murals and paintings of marine life, especially of whales. His series of 100 "Whaling Walls" is nearing completion, after which he will tackle a series of 100 monumental sculptures.
The "Whaling Walls" were what made Wyland a household name, as they are iconic artworks for the cities in which they're located. They can be found in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. His 100th wall in the series will be painted in Beijing, China during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The walls are enormous and decorated with all kinds of marine life, with whales as their main focus. Wyland has featured gray whales, blue whales, humpbacks, orcas and others in an effort to raise environmental awareness and foster affection for whales. The Beijing installment will feature life-size images of the great (balleen) whales, and children from around the world are going to be invited to paint along with Wyland. To see more photos of Wyland's Whaling Walls, go to the 
Large marine mammals are protected in Hawaii, so we're not allowed to approach them too closely, but the pilot whales seemed drawn to Wyland, and they circled him for some great footage. One of the keys to Wyland's success is that he always seems to be where the animals are, and if he's not, they come to him! I'm looking forward to seeing those shots on the 
We finished our boating excursion about 6:00 p.m. Wyland is amazing, because after a full day of swimming, snorkeling and videography from Masa's boat, he still had the energy to take on a full night's work at the Wyland Gallery. He was there by 7:30 p.m. and stayed all evening, painting a whale on canvas in oils, and using a Japanese ink brush to make line drawings of humpback whales for friends and gallery patrons.
The gallery was pretty packed with Wyland fans, gallery clients and quite a few passers-by who just wanted to see what all the noise was about. Wyland would work on the canvas for a while, then put down the brushes to talk to the guests and sign memorabilia. He took photos with anyone who asked and delighted everyone with his friendly personality and casual style.
We took some pix of the lighthouse and the deep sea water pipes at Keahole Point. These pipes suck up cold sea water from a few thousand feet deep and pump it to over 30 enterprises in the National Energy Laboratory of Hawaii (NELHA). Some companies use the cold, clear sea water for aquaculture, including the raising of main lobster, abalone, Japanese flounder, seahorses, algae, and more. Other companies produce mineral-rich drinking water, such as MaHaLo Hawaii Deep Sea Water. This water is exported to Japan, where it commands a nice price. We recently read in the local newspaper, West Hawaii Today, that the pipe had some damage to it and would require extensive repairs.
We took some photos of airplanes landing at Kona airport, and because it was pretty clear, we had a great view of snow-capped Mauna Kea, and got some pix of that, too. Then we hung around with the "swim with dolphins" excursion boats for a while. About 3 or 4 boats were there, and all the tourists were trying to get close to the spinner dolphins that were milling about in this area. The dolphins did their spins they're so famous for, and everyone got a nice show. A dog barking on one of the boats drove us a little nuts. I love dogs, but I wonder how the paying customers felt to have that yapping going on all day. The ocean off the Kona coast is a quiet place, unless you bring noise like that with you.
As we slowly approached the buoy, we noticed the ocean current was ripping, so Masa dropped in the water up current of the buoy, and drifted toward it and two of the whales. According to Masa, it turned out the whales were trying to hunt a lone bigeye tuna which was using the buoy as a shield against the whales! Masa was kicking hard and trying to stay parallel with the buoy and whales in the strong current. He was barely able to keep himself positioned far enough from the buoy to not affect the activity of the animals, but close enough to watch and photograph this rare event. Masa said the false killers occasionally looked straight at him, but they seemed unconcerned about his presence. Apparently the tuna looked a lot more appetizing to them than Masa. Lucky for him!
As the whales continued to focus on the tuna, they blew big bubbles underwater with a loud noise. It seemed like they were trying to startle the tuna away from the buoy and snatch it as it tried to escape. Two relatively smaller whales tried this technique again and again, but at the last moment, the tuna was able to swim to the other side of the buoy, escaping the sharp teeth of killer whales. As this behavior kept on, a large false killer of about 19 feet came out of nowhere and swam right by Masa's legs and joined the rest of the whales. Now three whales with open mouths blowing bubbles ganged up on this poor, frightened tuna. Can you imagine if you were that tuna dodging these huge black monsters? Three whales persistently attacked the tuna in vain, and finally the false killer whales faded into the blue one by one. Yes, the tuna prevailed and went on to live another day! 
As the sun was setting, we thought we saw the false killers again in the distance, but they turned out to be short-finned pilot whales. It was a large pod - maybe hundreds of them - spread out for miles. We all traveled together riding large offshore swells for a while, and tried to photograph the pilot whales rocketing out of large swells like in the emergency surfacing scene of the Navy submarine from the movie, Red October. Believe me, it was very hard to capture the scene in the near-sunset because the whales were quick and totally unpredictable as to where they were going to appear. Besides, the boat was rocking pretty bad, and in the end, neither of us got a decent shot. Despite that, it was a great day for marine photography; 3 false killers, spinner dolphins & a silky shark! We'll catch the pilot whales and the whale sharks another day!
Steve Drogin is first and foremost, a fantastic photographer, and 
Steve was in town after a visit to Easter Island. Before that, he had been in Costa Rica at Cocos Island, where he actually has a submarine that can take passengers to depths of 1,500 feet. Now many of us dream of having a nice boat to cruise the world, but Steve has his own submarine! Of course, it's a commercial operation, so he doesn't really have unlimited use of it, but still… What undersea photographer wouldn't love to have their own submarine? Anyway, if you are ever interested in going 457 meters deep off the coast of Cocos Island, and you've got about $2,500 to spare for a ticket, then consider the Deep See excursion. Prices actually start at about US $600 for a 100-meter dive. Check out the 
Besides Bob Talbot (center) in this photo, there are some other people of note. Masa, the 
Today was the day after the green sea turtle tagging (see 11/28 blog), an event which ended in a cataclysmic rainstorm. Because of the storm, the surf was particularly high today. Big Island is not the top surfing destination of the Hawaii chain, but on this day, the surfers were out taking advantage of the swells.
Right at the mouth of Keauhou Harbor, there were some nice sets coming in. This is kind of unusual for this location – or at least I've never seen it like this. We stopped our boat at the point where the waves were coming in to take some shots of the surfers. There was a guy and a girl out there, and we had a nice angle on them. The guy managed to stand up 5 or 6 times, while the girl, who was probably a novice, just got up once while we were watching. I wanted to get some shots of the girl, because in the 
We passed a fishing boat that was using a green stick, which is a technique used in Hawaii, though apparently it originated in Japan. The reason it's "green" is because that's the original color of the equipment used in this technique. One long pole sticks straight up from the boat with a line trailing from the very top of it. It drags along a floating object called a "bird," the purpose of which is to keep the line taut. Attached to the line are other lines hanging straight down with lures dangling into the water, just barely skimming the surface. The lures appear like squirming squid on the water, which is irresistible to tuna and marlin. We didn't stick around to watch if they caught anything, but I took a shot of the boat so I could describe the fishing technique on my SeaPics blog!
A mahi mahi swam past us and 
On this day, Masa caught one small yellowfin tuna – about a 15 pounder. We took a few pics of the waves crashing off the rock cliffs near Kealakekua Bay, and called it a day. Today wasn't exciting for wildlife, but we got a few photos of the surfers, which we don't usually get. Soon the humpback whales will be here, and we'll really have something to write about! Check back for that!
Down at the beach at Kaloko-Honokohau National Park, near the Honokohau Marina, a large tent was set up for the all-day tagging event. George Balazs, a prominent sea turtle researcher with the National Marine Fisheries Service (he was largely responsible for getting the green sea turtle listed as an endangered species), and Marc Rice, a teacher at Hawaii Preparatory Academy were in charge. They were being assisted by students from HPA, and by a few specially chosen volunteers, including Christine and Lynn, my two SeaPics.com employees. Christine and Lynn were able to participate because of their work with ReefTeach, a volunteer group on the Big Island. It is due to their efforts that the Reef Teachers were educated on sea turtles and now pass that information on to visitors at Kahulu'u Beach Park.
The procedure was for a group of researchers and student volunteers to go out with nets and large inner tubes to find sea turtles on the beach and in the shallows. Once found, the turtles are carefully placed into the inner tube, which has an attached bottom, then transferred to a crate on the beach for weighing. 
After weighing, each turtle is placed on a table for examination by George Balazs. The turtles are examined for injuries, disease and parasites, and they are all scanned for microchips which may have been inserted into the turtle's flipper at a previous tagging event. If no microchip is found, one is inserted. If they have a sonic transmitter attached to the shell, this is also scanned. George then measures and records the turtle's length, width and girth. The purpose of all of this is to help researchers understand the general condition of the turtles, and to see whether they are growing well and getting enough food.
I have lived in Kona, Hawaii for 12 years, and seen hundreds of sea turtles. To see them up close like this, and to learn about the turtle tagging effort, was a unique and valuable experience. Sea turtles are one of the symbols of Hawaii, and it's important for this type of research to take place. Sea turtles are endangered the world over (you can see the IUCN status on our 
