Despite more than a decade at the helm of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, she is still impressed at their grandeur. A majority of the humpback whales that will winter in Hawai'i are here now. They will breed and bear their young in Hawai'i's protected waters through March or April before returning to North Pacific waters.

The whales are doing well, said David Mattila, the sanctuary's science and rescue coordinator and a co-author of a 2006 study that concluded that about 10,000 humpbacks winter in Hawai'i waters.

The study also calculated that the leviathans are increasing their numbers by a healthy 6 percent to 7 percent each year.

At that rate, there now could be 12,000 or more humpbacks here each winter, McIntosh said.

Tomorrow and again on the last Saturday in February and in March, dozens of volunteers will fan out to an estimated 60 sites along the shores of O'ahu, Hawai'i and Kaua'i for the sanctuary's annual whale count. The count provides key population and distribution information on humpback whales around the Hawaiian Islands. (The Pacific Whale Foundation will conduct its own whale count on Maui on Feb. 27.)

Full-grown humpbacks are about 45 feet long and weigh up to 70,000 pounds. Whale calves, which are born here a year after conception, are about 13 feet long and 3,000 pounds.

In late December, McIn­tosh watched a group of eight male humpbacks competing for the attention of a female off Maui.

"We saw head lunges, tails coming out of the water, a lot of movement at the surface," she said. "There were 'trumpet blows' " heard clearly from the boat she was in. "It was quite dramatic."

That's just the kind of show visitors and local residents are hoping for when they book the whale-watching tours that generate about $20 million a year for Hawai'i's economy.

"Given what we've seen so far, we think it will turn out to be quite a dramatic year for whale-watching," McIntosh said.

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