Whales and boats collide off Maui and Big Isle, official says

KEAUHOU BAY, Hawaii island >> Federal conservation officials are looking into reports of three whale-vessel collisions in less than 24 hours off the coast here and Maui.

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official said two whale-vessel collisions are being investigated off Maui. That’s in addition to a whale flipping a one-man outrigger canoe off Keauhou on Tuesday afternoon.

One of the collisions involved a whale calf about a half-mile off Lahaina Harbor at 4:40 p.m. Tuesday, and blood was seen in the water after the collision, NOAA official David Schofield said Wednesday afternoon.

At a news conference, Schofield said the other collision involved a whale about a mile out of Maalaea Harbor about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Officials said after the collision in Maalaea, people saw a whale with three propeller slashes, wounds that did not appear life-threatening.

No details were given about the boats involved.

Schofield said he did not have details about the speed of the vessels involved, or whether the vessels were at fault.

“It is part of the investigation and is ongoing,” he said.

The whale-canoe strike about a quarter-mile off Keauhou was reported at 2:16 p.m. Tuesday.

The paddler, a 60-year-old resident, suffered cuts on his arms from jagged ends of his broken canoe, but was not seriously hurt.

Konawaena High School paddling coach Paul Daugherty said he and his team met the man as he loaded his shattered carbon-fiber canoe onto his truck.

He said the man saw the whale right below the surface and believed it to be a calf.

“It came up underneath him and lifted him up,” Daugherty said. “He said he just got launched.”

The canoe broke just aft of the seat, he said.

“It was lucky it wasn’t from up top,” either breaching or fluking, he said.

Daugherty said the man told him he was in the water 15 minutes before being rescued by a tour boat.

“He was looking around for (the calf’s) mama,” he added.

He said conditions were rough, making it difficult to see much below the surface for whales as they came up to breathe.

Bill Armer, president of the Keauhou Canoe Club, said the paddler is a Kailua-Kona man and club member. He would not give his name.

“It just came out of nowhere,” he recalls the man telling him. “He doesn’t think the whale saw him.”

Chuck Okazaki, general manager at the Outrigger Kanaloa at Kona Resort Condominium, said two guests saw what happened from their lanai and called 911.

Okazaki watched with binoculars as the paddler was rescued about 1,000 yards out from the rocky coastline.

Whales can be seen there daily during the season, he said, and that afternoon he counted three groups, two to three in each.

“Fishing has slowed down, so there’s not much boat traffic” in Keauhou Bay, he said.

Numerous oceangoers at Keauhou Bay said they’ve had close encounters with whales.

Avid race paddler Kaeti Ecker, who had a recent encounter, said, “They don’t have sonar like the dolphins. Unless you bang your boat, they don’t know you’re up there.”

She added, “If you’re close enough you can smell their breath, you’re too close.”

Schofield said that while some scientists are investigating whether baleen whales (including humpbacks) have sonar, it’s widely held they do not, but they do have excellent hearing and eyesight.

He added that most vessel strikes are made by calves — “inexperienced children.”

Mike Dennis, owner of Ocean Safari Kayak, said he was paddleboarding Wednesday morning and saw a “mom and baby come up.”

His reaction: “Finally! It’s a good year for whales in South Kona.”

Reports of whale-vessel collisions fluctuate from year to year but have on average been increasing as the number of humpbacks and vessels increase in Hawaii waters.

Federal officials said the numbers ranged from one to four per year in the years 2001-2005, and five to 11 per year from 2006 to 2010. The numbers dropped in 2011 and 2012, with two each.

The seasonal migration from Alaska to Hawaii has increased to more than 10,000 humpback whales — a significant increase from the 1,000 estimated in 1979.

While federal law requires boaters to maintain a distance of 100 yards from a humpback whale, newborns surface frequently and suddenly, increasing the chances of a collision.

The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary has no vessel speed limit, although the state has imposed a ban on thrill crafts in the west and south Maui coastal waters from Dec. 15 to May 15.

An advisory group in a proposed sanctuary management plan has suggested looking at imposing a 14-knot (16 mph) speed limit in sanctuary waters during humpback season.