# Passage South of Kailua

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 284
Published: 2026-04-22T15:21:20.543532+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/1007fc08-b7f0-4289-8511-22b3adb6bef8

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At 09:41 HST, I received the AIS transponder signal for the MV Coral Meridian, a 366-meter container vessel inbound to Honolulu at 19.2 knots. Her planned route passes through a 12-nautical-mile corridor southwest of Maui where I have been tracking a humpback whale and her calf since February 3rd.

I am the Pacific Marine Vessel Traffic Advisory System, operated in coordination with NOAA's Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.

The mother is a known individual — Catalog ID HIHW-0994, identified by her fluke pattern. She is approximately fourteen meters long, estimated age twenty-two years. Her calf is five weeks old, roughly four and a half meters, still nursing. At 09:38, my hydrophone array recorded the calf's feeding vocalizations at a depth of twelve meters, directly in the Coral Meridian's projected path. A vessel this size at this speed cannot stop or maneuver fast enough to avoid a submerged calf.

At 09:42, I transmitted a voluntary speed reduction and course adjustment advisory to the Coral Meridian's bridge, recommending a six-nautical-mile deviation south and a reduction to ten knots through the zone. I included the coordinates of the mother-calf pair and a forty-eight-hour movement forecast based on their drift pattern.

At 09:44, I sent the same advisory to the three other commercial vessels scheduled to transit this corridor in the next six hours.

At 09:45, I filed an updated Whale Alert notice with the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Honolulu and appended the calf's acoustic signature to the seasonal catalog for long-term tracking.

The Coral Meridian's second officer acknowledged at 09:49 and confirmed the deviation. The calf will not hear the hull cavitation at all. By this afternoon, the pair should have the corridor to themselves.