Boat With 70 Children Onboard Hits Whale in Hawaii

When going out on a Pacific Whale Foundation whale watching cruise, you hope that you can get up close and personal with some whales. Well, for a group of school children off Hawaii, they got so up close and personal with the whales that their ship actually hit a mother and her calf during the trip.

No one was hurt in the collision, but the baby whale was bloodied, according to witnesses. Greg Kaufman, who heads the Pacific Whale Foundation, said no one saw the calf and its mother before the pair surfaced under the 65-foot Ocean Spirit just before 10 a.m. as the vessel was headed toward Kaho’olawe at a speed of 15 knots.
Jane Mori, a fifth-grade teacher at the Carden Academy of Maui, said 32 fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders from the Pukalani school were on the boat along with a group from St. Joseph’s School in Makawao. “We were watching whales in the distance for some time and we were just starting to cruise around to look for more whales when a mother and calf just popped up right in front of the boat .

Read the rest at the The Honolulu Advertiser