I went on a similar group cruise with my husband and saw the J pod over there in the San Juan islands. On another trip I took my sister visiting on a private whale watching trip around whibey island and we didn’t see anything. In fact the captain kept asking us to look for whale blow and we had no idea what that even looked like or what he was talking about and got sea sick from being in a small boat.
I don’t even remember how many whale watches I’ve been on. And there were always whales, usually finbacks. One time there was only one whale, but maybe hundreds of white-sided dolphins.
There was one time when the waves were really big and about 75% of the passengers and crew got sick. It was a vomitfest. We saw a humpback and her calf. At one point the female was spyhopping.
No one gave a shit.
Sounds like $100 well-spent. I miss the ocean.
Thank your lucky stars it wasn’t a three-hour tour.
(unless Ginger and Maryann were also aboard …)
The whales have been cut back due to government sequestration.
Not to gloat, but…
We went on an afternoon tour out of Friday Harbor and saw many tons of orcas from two pods, in addition to learning who owned which island.
Then we went over to the other side of the island to float around in kayaks while the sun set over Canada. We didn’t get back until after dark, because the critters we saw earlier swam past us for well over an hour. The law (and common sense) dictated that we just sit there in our little boats while this ludicrously large family of truck size animals took their time passing within thirty feet of us. Their breathing is surprisingly loud when there’s no wind and your head is three feet above the water.
What’s it like to see orcas in the wild? Do you just see their backs? Do they breach? Spyhop? Do their flukes leave footprints?
I went on a whale-watching tour in Halifax and we didn’t see any whales. I especially didn’t see any whales since I fell asleep!
On the other hand, my wife and I saw some whales when we went on a Hawaiian cruise, so that was a bonus.