Videos & Social
At Captain Steve’s we see so many amazing things that we are overflowing with amazing videos. Feel free to check out our Facebook page to see more, or to upload your own from our trip. Enjoy!
2-3-20 Humpback Whale Giving Birth under our raft! First of its kind RARE underwater footage! This is the highlights video that we showed during our presentation at the Whale Tales weekend in Kapalua on 2-14-20 while presenting with Jim Darling. We were watching three whales about 2 miles off of Lahaina, Maui doing what we thought was normal competition pod behavior when they approached our raft and this miraculous encounter began. Note that we follow all Federal approach laws of 100 yards. When whales approach your vessel, stopping and waiting until they move away from you is the law. This female immediately started doing tight circles under and around our raft. She had a primary escort under her blowing bubbles constantly, and there was a third whale (another male challenger) there throughout the entire encounter as well. On her 7th circle around/under the raft, we noticed she was in labor and had a baby’s tail sticking out of her genital slit. She ended up doing this circling behavior about 50 times. We had go pro on a pole and we were able to get about 40 minutes of this incredible FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND underwater footage while we are sharing here the highlights! We called NOAA immediately and they sent a research boat out our way. This female wouldn’t leave our raft. We (with 34 years of whale watching experience) believe that this female was trying to ditch her male escorts as that is a common behavior during competition pods. A female sometimes takes refuge under a boat trying to get her escorts to leave her alone at that particular moment. At one point, the baby comes out further but then retracts back in. We really thought we were going to see the baby at that point! This female stayed with us for about an hour total until we had the opportunity to leave when she moved away just enough. We had to return to the dock to pick up our next group of people (we were late!). The NOAA research boat was almost to us to keep observing so we called in another tour boat to monitor the female whale. Once we left, the female stopped doing this circling activity. Only 90 minutes later, she was last seen heading into rougher waters by the NOAA research boat and while she had ditched escorts, she still hadn’t finished giving birth. On February 14, 2020, we presented some of this incredible video footage with Jim Darling at the annual Whale Tales 4 day event in Kapalua to whale experts and enthusiasts. JIm researched and presented that there are only three published/documented accounts of humpback whale observed births (Madagascar, Australia, Brazil) and no underwater footage exists, UNTIL NOW. There have been several unpublished accounts but again, as far as the Maui/Alaska humpback whale scientists are aware, this is the first underwater footage. Quite exciting! So much is unknown about the humpback whale birthing process (how long does it? Is tail first normal?). What we do know is that tail (fluke) first births are normal for most observed whale births. Dr. Kristi West showed a slide during her Whale Tales presentation that day that shows these statistics for observed whale births: Bottlenose Dolphins: 98.1% Fluke first, Killer Whales: 97% Fluke first, Pacific White-sided Dolphins: 100% Fluke first, False Killer Whales: 100% Fluke first, Beluga Whales: 90.5% Fluke first. Note that these are all odontocetes (toothed whales). Mysticetes (baleen whales) are a mystery with so few encounters. We and the entire whale watching community is on the look out for this particular female as we want to know the ending to this story! We have her fluke ID (pictures of her tail) so everyone is looking for her here and up in Alaska as well and she is on the Happy Whale website which matches up flukes IDs.
Enjoy this rare footage!
UPDATE–Of all of the Maui whale watch companies out there searching for our partial birth mother, it was our company that was the only one to resight our mother whale and she had a healthy calf!! We encountered her on 3-14-20 during our 2:30 whale watch. We got a couple of good tail shots and confirmed it was her through Happywhale.com. What are the odds is was our company! And to make the story even more special, we shut down for the season starting on 3/18/20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The timing couldn’t have been better! There are videos and pictures of our resighting of the mother whale and Baby Canefire (yep, we named the baby) on our Facebook page under the playlist “Partial Birth.” It’s unknown if Baby Canefire is a female or male. We will all be on the lookout for them next season!
CLICK ON THE GEAR ICON AND PICK 1080 HD if it is not on! 2-3-20 Partial Birth Underwater first-of-its-kind footage!
2020 “Repeat Offendors” Montage
3-12-20 Incredible Mugging by female with her escorts 9:45 Whale Watch Topside Footage
3-12-20 Incredible Mugging by female with her escorts 9:45 Whale Watch Underwater Footage
3-5-20 Mugging 9:45 Whale Watch Topside Footage
3-2-20 Mugging 2:30 Whale Watch Topside Footage
3-2-20 Mugging 2:30 Whale Watch Underwater Footage
Breach! From our 1-20-20 9:45 Whale Watch
Now you too can experience a classic mugging just like we did on our 1-16-20 9:45 whale watch!
Enjoy this snippet from our spy hop o’rama from our 2-21-19 mugging.
Here’s our favorite moment of the mugging we had on 2-21-19! Joe’s “can you come a little closer” had us LOL and it was followed by yet another spy hop.
Enjoy this topside footage of our 2-21-19 mugging. Our previous post had the underwater footage. What a great whale watch!
If you want to experience what is happening underwater during a classic “mugging,” here’s your chance. Grab some popcorn, make this fill your screen, turn on the sound and hit play. These whales stayed with us for an hour last Thursday, 2-21-19 during our 7:30 whale watch. Multiple spy hops occurred during this experience. You can view our previous post this morning for pictures of many of these spy hops from the surface. We will also share another video of topside footage later. I narrowed it down to about 13+ minutes from about 40 minutes of footage. I left the sound on instead of adding music because they make some interesting sounds. Whale enthusiasts enjoy! Dig Me Deb
Enjoy these “best of” pictures from our 2018 whale season! We appreciate so many of our guests sharing their photos every season! What a great job we all have!
We thank all of our “repeat offendors” for coming out with us this year! Sorry if we missed anyone! Enjoy “My Hometown” by Uncle Willie K as you look for yourselves!
This whale really took an interest in our raft and we ended up with an incredibly close encounter! What a treat for our guests! See the separate video with the topside footage.
Here is topside footage of the incredibly close encounter from 2-12-18’s 7:30 trip! This whale really was interested in our raft!
Here is underwater footage of one incredibly close encounter from 2-12-18’s 7:30 whale watch!
On our 1-25-18 9:45 whale watch, this male whale approached our raft and then “mugged” us for a while. He rolled over and around a lot delighting everyone on board! We have a topside footage video of this whale posting at the same time that includes multiple spy hop pictures as well. What a great trip!
We experienced a classic “mugging” with this male whale on our 1-25-18 9:45 whale watch. He came over to us and hung out for a bit. He rolled over and over for us and did many spy hops. See the underwater footage in a separate video!!
Here is one breach caught by customer Steven Bloch from 1-22-18!
Enjoy this set of three breaches by the same whale on 1-22-18!
Enjoy this compilation of the “best of our 2017 whale season” pictures from our guests, crew and friends!
When we get the chance to snorkel at shark fin rock on Lanai, it’s like swimming in a wild aquarium!
Tis the end of whale season 2017! Mahalo to all of our wonderful repeat offendors!
Enjoy this mother and calf swim by from our last whale watch of the 2017 season.
Head lunging action from our 4-13-17 7:30 whale watch.
Enjoy this humpbacks from our 4-10-17 9:45 whale watch.
Enjoy this spinner dolphin action from 4-7-17.
Enjoy this underwater and topside footage of our friendly whale from Friday, 3-31-17’s 9:45 whale watch. We had watched this whale spy hopping at the end of our 7:30 trip so we went in search of it on our next trip. We found the area and the whale announced its presence with a full breach next to the raft! Then it came over and visited. It has a large area of white scarring on its right side of its rostrum (nose).
There’s a whole lot of action here! Mother, calf and slap happy escort! From our 3-13-17 2:30 whale watch.
Enjoy this very loud singer from our 3-6-17 2:30 whale watch! Turn the sound up!
Check out this breach from above and below! From our 2-16-17 12:15 Whale Watch
These two whales mugged us! The one whale kept rolling over next to us! From our 2-9-17 7:30 Whale Watch
We started watching these female in a competition pod with four escorts. By the end, she was by herself as she played with our raft for over an hour! What a sweetheart of a mugging! From our 2-9-17 7:30 Whale Watch
These two whales gave us quite the thrill! From 2-2-17’s 9:45 Whale Watch.
Turn up your sound for this video. We had a surprise singer on our footage of our close encounter from 2-2-17’s 12:15 Whale Watch. The singing is fantastic and we have underwater and topside footage of our close encounter!
Now this is some tail throwing action! From 1-27-17
This female pec slapped her way over to us and then gave us a viewing under the water! From 1-27-17
This is just a lot of tail slapping fun! from 1-20-17
Enjoy this “mugging” from our 1-19-17 7:30 whale watch.
On our 1-16-17 12:15 trip, we had a spy hopper!
On our 12:15 whale watch on 12-26-16, we had a very friendly whale interact with our raft and one other boat. It would go from one boat to the other and pec slap in front of it, spy hop and breach! This whale was most definitely showing off for us! Who is watching who?
Our first baby whale sighting of the 2016-2017 season had the baby come right over to the raft!
We had close tail slapping on our 12-22-16 whale watch!
Our last whale watch of the 2016 season had active whales, leaping bottlenose dolphins, and spinner dolphins!
Mother, calf and escort encounter
Unexpected loud singer during an encounter with three whales, including spy hopping and rainblows!
Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins.
Mothers and calves.
Enjoy this mother whale who is tail slappy happy!
This is a fantastic competition pod!
This is one fantastic hour long mugging from 1-15-16!
Enjoy one of our first “muggings” of the season from 1-11-16!
See the pelagic manta rays that came by on our whale watch!
Enjoy this 2015 Whale Season “Best of” Photo slideshow!
This video shows what kind of sea life you might see on one of our snorkel trips.
2015 End of Whale Season Mahalo to our repeat guests!
2-27-15 Whale Watch with rough toothed dolphins
2-23-15 945 Whale Watch including a mugging
2-19-15 2:30 Whale Watch with lots of action!
2-12-15 7:30 Whale Watch with a mother/calf mugging
1-27-15 Whale Watch
Underwater Whale Montage from February, 2014
2-21-14 Whale Watch
12-1-14 Whale Watch
11-20-14 Lana’i Snorkel
This video shows what a typical Lana’i snorkel trip is like.
3-5-14 Whale Watch
2-21-14 Whale Watch
2-9-14 EPIC 9:45 Whale Watch with mugging by two adult whales
2-9-14 7:30 Whale Watch with mother/calf mugging
2-9-14 Close spy hop
2-9-14 Really close spy hop
2-9-14 Double spy hop
