Maui Whales and Ocean Tales
Maui Whales & Ocean Tales
Humpback Whales
· Big Wave Surfing
· Ocean Connection
Season 1 Underway
Same water. Same winter. Two worlds most people never see.
This is where the story begins.
But here's what we've learned: people protect what they're connected to. Not what they're told to protect - what they've seen, felt, and understood for themselves. Every image, every field account, every conversation this project puts into the world is a bridge between someone sitting at a desk somewhere and a 40-ton animal singing in the crystalline, warm, shallow waters that make this channel one of the most important humpback habitats on Earth. They come here because this water is safe. Because it's warm enough for a newborn calf. Because it's shallow enough to hear a song travel for miles.
That connection is not a side effect of this project. It is the project.
When a child in a Maui classroom understands what's happening in the water half a mile from their school. When a hotel guest leaves with more than a photograph. When a researcher has aerial footage they couldn't have captured alone. When someone who has never seen the ocean understands why it's worth protecting.
Start here. It's free.
The Maui Whales & Ocean Tales newsletter runs weekly during whale season- dispatches from the water, the science, and the people who know this place best. Visual storytellers, marine scientists, ocean advocates, surfers, and the broader winter Maui community all have a seat in this conversation. What's happening in the channel. What's happening on the swells. The full 360 of what winter here actually looks like.
Plus previews of everything coming out of this project: the prints, the magazine, the coffee table book, the expeditions.
Just the season, in real time.
Want to go deeper?
Collect- Fine art prints from inside the ʻAuʻau Channel Experience and Maui's surf
Learn- Educational and hospitality resources for the tourism sector
Read- The digital magazine and coffee table book
Experience- Tonga. Mexico. Norway. Humpbacks, gray whales, orcas, and open ocean encounters - led by expedition guide and international wildlife photographer Emily McCulliss.
Why does this project exist?
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10,000+ humpback whales return to Maui's waters every winter and we still have so much to learn about what's actually happening here
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The same North Pacific swells that build Peahi and Honolua Bay carry these whales home winter here is one ecosystem, not two separate stories, and almost no one is telling it that way
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This project holds it the rare authorization to attempt documenting synchronized whale behavior
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The surf community and the whale community share the same water, the same season, and the same stakes but they've rarely shared the same story
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Vessel strikes, entanglement, and environmental changes are changing the population
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Whale season is one of the most powerful wildlife experiences on Earth and the story it carries deserves to be told at the deepest level possible
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The connection people feel on the water is real, whether they're on a surfboard, on a research vessel, or seeing a breach for the first time from shore, this project exists to deepen it, document it, and send it further into the world
What this project does about it
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Every water day contributes to the scientific record: behavioral observations, photo identification, and aerial documentation submitted to HappyWhale, the global cetacean catalog used by researchers worldwide
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Fluke identification from every documented encounter adds to the North Pacific population database. individual animals tracked, recognized, and monitored across seasons and oceans
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Behavioral documentation is made scientifically accessible so educators, operators, and ocean advocates can actually use it
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Educational materials built specifically for Hawaii's schools, tourism operators, and hospitality sector, giving the people closest to these animals the context to tell the story accurately
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A percentage of every print sale, membership, and expedition booking goes directly back into time on the water -> more water days, more documentation, more data
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Fine art, a digital magazine, and a coffee table book carry this story to audiences far beyond Maui, collectors, educators, conservationists, and people who will never see a humpback whale in person but deserve to understand why they matter
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A public platform built on three words: connect, educate, inspire
Meet Emily McCulliss- Project Creator
NOAA Marine Mammal Research Permit Principal Investigator · April Artist-in-Residence, The Ritz-Carlton Kapalua Bay ·Featured The Wall Street Journal, D'Art Gallery, Montage Kapalua Bay, Chamoun Gallery, Banana Contemporary · Expedition Guide and Global Photographer on Seven Continents · Season 1 Underway
Contact Emily-
Whatsapp: +1-808-264-8766
