Ocean Warrior: Another life dream achieved!

Yes, that's right...I saw a humpback whale breach today!!! We were driving in the van to a place near the the North Shore of O'ahu where we were going to go for a hike to find Hawai'ian monk seals. When we pulled into the parking lot Justin shouted, "Whale!" I missed that first one, but another one breached a few minutes later. It happened quickly and was far off in the distance, so I didn't get a picture or a video, but later this week we are going to go to another place to watch for humpbacks. Hopefully, I'll get a closer look and a good video of a whale breaching then!

This morning we left at 5:00 am for the Honolulu Tuna Auction. This is where all the Hawaiian tuna longline vessels bring their catch to sell. They bring all the fish into the auction house and lay them in rows on pallets. Then, the auctioneer, along with all the buyers, walks up and down the rows auctioning off each fish one by one.

The auction is taking place in the background on the right side of the picture.

Ahi (bigeye tuna) is the big money maker in the Hawaii tuna longline fishery. This large fish sold for over $1200 this morning. It will probably be used for sashimi.

A mako shark. The longlines catch many species other than tunas. Sharks are usually thrown back because there is no market for them here, but there is a small market for mako sharks.

Although it was sad to see so many magnificent and rapidly disappearing animals on the auction floor, it was a fascinating experience to see how the tuna auction works and to get to talk to some of the people there. Sean Martin, who owns several of the Hawaiian tuna longline boats walked us through the auction process and talked to us about management issues in the fishery. The Hawaiian longline fishery is perhaps the most regulated fishery in the Pacific ocean. The US has strict laws to protect species, including sea turtles, sea birds, and marine mammals, that often are caught by or otherwise interact with longlines. Once the Hawaiian longline fleet has had a certain number of interactions with protected species, the fishery is shut down for the rest of the season. However, fishing boats from other countries do not have to abide the same rules, even though they may be fishing in the same area. While Hawaiian tuna fishermen have seen that the required conservation measures do not reduce their catches, they are frustrated that they must often end their season early while fishermen from other nations continue fishing, and do so without the conservation measures that the US fishermen use. The Hawaiian fishermen would like to encourage fishermen from other countries to implement the conservation measures used in the US, since they reduce catch of unwanted species without reducing the catch of target species. But, communication is difficult because fishermen are very independent and do not like other people telling them what to do.

After the tuna auction we drove to the north west side of the island to go for our hike to find monk seals. That is when we saw the whales breaching. After the whale's show, we hiked for about an hour along a very muddy path (it rained a lot yesterday, and some today, too) with the mountains rising sharply to our left and the largest ocean waves I have ever seen to our right. The waves were about 20 feet tall, and it was very windy. Near the end of the trail, laysan albatrosses were nesting among the dunes. These are large and impressive seabirds that have a very wide wingspan and make long migrations. Frigate birds also soared overhead. Beyond the albatross nests, we came the end of point. Two Hawaiian monk seals lay on the sand among the rocks below us. They don't do much on land - they expend a lot of energy hunting in the ocean and haul up on the beach to rest and be lazy where predators cannot reach them. These animals represent the third endangered species we've seen today (humpback whales, laysan albatrosses, and now Hawaiian monk seals). Truly a once-in-a-life time opportunity.