A dollar a guest, and a way of running the boat
We make our living from these animals. The least we can do is send money to people who defend them, and not be part of the problem while we are out there.
The tally
Every guest on every trip adds $1 to what we send to the Captain Paul Watson Foundation. It is not a rounding-up option at checkout; it comes out of the fare.
2026–27 season
—
opens 2026-12-15
Per guest, every trip
$1
The season tally starts counting on opening day and updates from our bookings through the season.
Why the Captain Paul Watson Foundation
The Captain Paul Watson Foundation was set up in 2022, after Watson’s departure from Sea Shepherd, to carry on the work he is known for: direct-action campaigns that put ships and volunteers between whales and the fleets that hunt them. Its recent campaigns have targeted commercial whaling in Iceland and the Faroe Islands and Japan’s factory-ship whaling in the Pacific.
In 2024 Watson spent five months in detention in Greenland on a Japanese request before Denmark declined to extradite him. We did not pick a comfortable organisation to support. That is the point: the whales we make our living from are the same animals those ships are built to kill.
The rules we work under
Whale watching in Hawai‘i is regulated for good reason. These are the ones that shape every trip.
100 yards
Federal law sets the minimum approach distance to a humpback in Hawaiian waters at 100 yards (91 m). We hold it, every time, and shut the engines down inside 300 yards.
The whales decide
A curious whale is allowed to come as close as it likes. The rule governs us, not them, and a “mugging” by a whale that will not leave the raft is the best thing that can happen on a trip.
The sanctuary
The waters off Lahaina are part of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, created in 1992 and run by NOAA with the State of Hawai‘i. Its rules, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, are the ones we work under.
Fluke photos to science
Every clear fluke photograph is a fingerprint. We are building the habit of submitting ours to Happywhale, the citizen-science catalogue that tracks individual humpbacks between Alaska and Hawai‘i.
How the tally is counted
The season tally is the number of guests who have sailed with us since opening day, times one dollar. It is taken from our booking system, not estimated, and it resets each season so you can see exactly what this winter has produced. Cancelled and no-show bookings are not counted. We send the money to the foundation at the end of the season and post the receipt here.
How we operate around the whales
Money is the easy part. This is the part that costs us sightings sometimes.
The 100-yard rule, kept
Federal law says 100 yards from a humpback. We hold it, and we shut the engines down and let the whales decide the rest.
No crowding
If three boats are already on a pod, we go and find another one. A whale that wants space gets it.
Twin low-emission outboards
Modern four-strokes burn far less fuel and put far less into the water than the two-strokes they replaced.
No single-use plastic aboard
Filtered water and paper cups. Across a season that is thousands of bottles that never existed.
Reef-safe sunscreen, required
Oxybenzone and octinoxate are banned in Hawai‘i. We ask, and we have some at the desk.
Fluke photos to science
Every clear fluke shot we get is a fingerprint. We are working towards submitting them to the photo-identification catalogues that track individual whales across the Pacific.
Come and see what the dollar is for
Twenty seats, engines off, and the whales at eye level.