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 foundation was set up by Paul Watson, the marine conservationist who co-founded Greenpeace and founded Sea Shepherd, to carry on the work he is known for: direct-action campaigns that put boats and people between marine wildlife and the things killing it. It is not a comfortable organisation to support. That is rather the point.
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.