Whale Watching in Maui

As a crew member, I can sign up to escort shore excursions. It’s hit or miss on which tours you get to go on, since there are a very limited number of escorts, but if you’re selected, you go on the tour for free. Escorting requires very little, usually a couple of head counts and sitting in the back of the bus.

This time in Lahaina, I went on the whale watching excursion. As I was waiting for the boat to get back from the previous whale watching tour, surrounded by older passengers with mobility issues, with the hot sun beating down on me, I had serious doubts about this excursion. I was second-guessing my decision to spend two hours on the open water with nothing but flat, glassy ocean to look at. A friend of mine had gone on the tour a few weeks earlier and seen only one whale.

But it was too late, so away I go. It blew me away.

We saw whales pretty constantly, some closer than others. The captain was great in terms of predicting behaviors and anticipating sightings. We followed a pair of adults for the better part of an hour, to be rewarded by them coming up and investigating our boat.

They spy-hopped us from a hundred yards, jumping above the surface to check us out, then swam over. They tooled around underneath our boat. We could see them through the crystal-clear water, especially the white patches under their pectoral fins. The light reflecting off their white patches was turned brilliant turquoise by the water. We could see the entire body of the whales as they investigated our boat. They surfaced about 50 feet from us.

It definitely surpassed my expectations, last-minute doubts and all.