Humpback Whales of Maui 2014

Many of you know I love these whales & go to Maui every February to see them. This year we had the most close up experiences & lots of close up breaches as well for a very thrilling week.

I have tons of shots so if you want more, just ask.

Awesome Maureen

Nice Maureen - More please

I'm heading to Maui on Sunday for a couple of weeks myself

I'm asking. My wife will love seeing them.

See the baleens in his mouth; they filter out the big stuff because they only eat little stuff like krill & plankton.

Surprise breach right beside out raft; never saw him coming & he was almost too close to photograph. As you can see, I still didn't even get him in my full frame..... no cropping on these at all!! Very thrilling!

I had to shoot in to the sun to get these but here is what a close encounter can look like. Woweee when it is you out there on the raft.

Awesome!!

As you can see, the lighting is not always in the best spots but some of the best things to take pictures of are going on. So I shot about 25% of what I saw out there & just enjoyed the rest with my eyes. We often had so many whales right beside us & under us that the eyes are the best lenses for those encounters anyways.
Here is what a visit can look like; I took these from about 100 yards away:

Wow amazing and beautiful captures Maureen,thanks for sharing.

Wow. Good stuff.

These are awesome! Thanks for sharing.
I really want to go to one of these tours but then jump off the boat and capture some underwater whale images. I wonder what the tour company would do...

From the looks of this, was this one of the more successful photo trips?

budcam wrote in post #16725254
Wow amazing and beautiful captures Maureen,thanks for sharing.

More to come later after I have gotten them all opened.

Mel-S wrote in post #16725368
Wow. Good stuff.

Thanks!

*Knowledge* wrote in post #16725394
These are awesome! Thanks for sharing.
I really want to go to one of these tours but then jump off the boat and capture some underwater whale images. I wonder what the tour company would do...

It is illegal; you would be arrested. They are still an endangered species.

meh_meli wrote in post #16725403
From the looks of this, was this one of the more successful photo trips?

Well, it was the trip with the most close encounters I have ever had in 20 years. It really was amazing... saw over 200 breaches. Plus we had whales right at our raft every single day & some hung out with us for 30 minutes. Literally inches away.