Spotting Whales off the Kohala Coast

Thar she blows: words I borrowed quite a few times on my February trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. I was completely blown away - pun intended - by the number of whales I spotted in the ocean from the Kohala Coast during my stay. The sightings started on my very first afternoon on the island, only an hour after my plane's touchdown, while I prepared to watch sunset on the beach at the Lava Lava Beach Club.

I shouldn't have been surprised because mid-winter is the peak time to see humpback whales in Hawaii. While on a snorkeling excursion out of Keauhou Bay on the Kona Coast, my charter boat encountered several of the cetaceans only minutes into the trip. It was only the second day of my vacation, so I was amazed to spend twenty minutes in the company of these behemoths so soon. And I'd soon find out that where I was staying for six of my eight nights on the island, forty miles north on the Kohala Coast, there was a much higher density of the whales.

The ocean along that specific coastline is actually part of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, which was created by Congress in 1992. It encompasses large areas off the other islands too, especially one vast zone of all the water in between Maui, Lanai, and Molokai. The Sanctuary recognizes that half of the North Pacific Ocean's humpback population relies on this warm, shallow (less than 600 feet deep) water to mate, give birth, and raise their young from November to May.

While I expected to see whales on my trip, I wasn't prepared for the front row seat that the Hilton Waikoloa Village offered for watching these visitors. Whether hiking in the morning atop the rocky, volcanic cliffs above the breaking surf, or ensconced in a chaise lounge to watch sunset late in the day, a steady supply of spouts filled the panoramic seascape.

Occasionally a whale breached, thrusting its entire body out of the sea before landing in a tremendous splash. Other times a distant whale raised a pectoral fin in the air and slapped the water repetitively for thirty seconds. But usually a misty spout drew my attention as the spray lingered in the salty air. More often than not, a dorsal fin and back would then break through the ocean's surface, frequently followed by an appearance of the two flukes of a tail. I was rarely ready with my 400mm zoom lens, but did manage a few decent captures.

It's difficult to say exactly how far off shore these humpback whale were. One hundred yards, a football field's length? Certainly they were not as close as one hundred feet, almost the length of a basketball court. Maybe they were frequently more than the distance from home base to center field, 400 feet in major league baseball. I have to admit that I probably read more Herman Melville in high school than I watched sports, so I'm on more solid footing quoting his writing than making athletic comparisons.

Mistakenly, however, I thought the expression "Thar she blows" originated in his famous novel, Moby Dick. But on-line research shows me that those exact words don't appear in the book. Rather, the seamen characters yell, "There she blows," when spotting the infamous whale. Where does the popular variation come from? My theory is "thar" is just a phonetic representation of how some Americans - maybe New England sailors? - might have pronounced the vowel sound. Thanks to Hollywood, it's certainly how every pirate speaks: "Aarrrgghh!"

In reality, Billy Budd was the Melville book that kept me away from high school football games forty years ago. I remember almost nothing about the tome, even after consulting some summaries on the internet. Meanwhile Moby Dick, which I never opened, is a cultural touchstone of sorts. Clearly I read the wrong book. But at least this bookworm still knows how long a football field is.