Hawaii Whale Watching by Dennis vanEngelsdorp

This is a panorama of the coast just before you get to Pahala off of Route 11 on the Big Island of Hawaii. I arrived in Kona the night before and and drove from Kona to Pahala to meet a colleague in Pahala to wrap a Varroa Control Experiment in a Macademia Orchard. I had stopped to write in my journal because I had about an hour before I had to be in Pahala. A local islander stopped and asked me if I had seen any spouts in the water. I replied that I hadn't really been paying attention as I was focused on detailing my already incredible journey to Hawaii (and I hadn't been off the plane for twenty -four hours yet!). he told me he spotted what he thought was a humpback whale spout in the water. We gazed out at the sea together for about ten minutes but didn't see anything. The minute my new acquaintence left an adult Humpback surfaced not two-hundred yards off -shore...It was incredible. i quickly set-up the Gigapan and began perusing the water for more signs of cetaceans. To my amazement there were well over a dozen marine mammals of different sizes and species scattered in the water. If you look hard enough you can see air bubles and swirls in various regions of the water that mark the areas where these incredible mammals were visiting,

by Mike Andree
Research Technician
Penn State University