My favorite activity on Maui is whale watching! I can't get enough of the whales when we're there. When we're in view of the ocean I keep an eye out for whales. I like sitting on top of a cliff with binoculars and watching for spouts and breaching whales. And most of all, I like going out on a boat to see the whales up close.
The humpbacks are protected and boats are not allowed to get closer than 100 yards away from them, but for an animal so big that seems quite close. Plus, if the boat is turned off and the whales choose to come closer that is fine so sometimes you see them even closer.
Whenever we visit Maui in the winter we book a morning whale watching cruise. Before kids, we went on the first boat out at 6:45 AM. With kids, a boat leaving around 9 works better.
I don't think there are many places in the world where your whale watch tour passes by not only the first, but the second whales you see because they're not quite in the area of the ocean where they want to be, but that's how our tour started out this time.
The captain liked where we were the third time whales were spotted and we stopped to watch a female humpback and her calf. The calf breached completely out of the water three or four times while we watched them. After the first and second jumps our boy excitedly told my husband, "Dad, I ALMOST saw that!" My husband kept telling him to just keep watching and finally on the third breach our easily distracted boy said, "Dad, I saw that! I wasn't looking at my shoe!"
After watching those whales for 30 minutes or so we headed on in search of more. We found a group of three that they thought were a male, female and calf. They were all active and we got to see lots of tails in the air, pectoral slaps, and some partial breaches. I tried to take pictures but after getting a few nice pictures of splashes like this I gave up.
I need a faster camera and fewer kids to keep track of to really capture the whales, but putting away the camera and just enjoying the show was really great. Words can't do the whales on Maui justice, so plan a trip to Maui sometime and see them for yourself!
Do it yourself on Maui:
• Whales are in the Hawaiian waters from December to May, but their numbers are highest from January to April.
• Many companies offer whale tours. We have always gone with the Pacific Whale Foundation and I highly recommend them. Their staff are very knowledgeable about the whales and will teach you a lot! Kids 6 and under are free on their cruises and are treated very well! They remind everyone to let children up to the railing so they can see, they have models and pictures of whales for kids to see and hold and sometimes they have coloring books and other activities for the kids too.
• The whales are close enough that even our 21 month old girl could get into watching them, but after awhile they're ready to do something else. Snacks are our trick for keeping our kids happy for the two hour tour.
• You cannot pick up or carry children in your arms when you walk around the boat, even infants, so take some kind of a carrier that allows your hands to be free if you have a child who will want to be carried a lot.
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