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Whales and Bears


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We are planning on an August 2016 cruise to Alaska out of Seattle. My kids really want to see bears and whales. I was told there is an excellent place in Victoria that offers whale watching (they want to see Orcas), but I do not know where to look for bears. The ports include Victoria, Ketichan, Skagway, and Juneau. Are there any good tours in any of these ports that include seeing bears?

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We are planning on an August 2016 cruise to Alaska out of Seattle. My kids really want to see bears and whales. I was told there is an excellent place in Victoria that offers whale watching (they want to see Orcas), but I do not know where to look for bears. The ports include Victoria, Ketichan, Skagway, and Juneau. Are there any good tours in any of these ports that include seeing bears?

 

In August, I would recommend Traitor's Cove out of Ketchikan. Victoria is not 100% orca sightings. IF a "must", then I recommend you go out multiple days. If you can find out after the first trip, if they are in range, so much the better. Usually if you were planning on doing this tour from a cruise ship stop- there isn't enough time for a regular tour. They do sell ship tours, that are too short- (I would never consider them) shorter- means the orcas have to be within even closer range.

 

There are resident orca pods out of Juneau and Seward, even less sightings, but, the way to see them is to stack your deck at every opportunity.

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if you have time in Seattle pre/post cruise, consider a whale watch trip from Anacortes, about an hour north of Seattle. The same resident pods cover the area between the WA coast and Victoria. I've gone out with them twice now and it's a great trip ...about 6 hrs of scenic sailing past the San Juan Islands, sail boats, lighthouses, ferries, seals, bald eagles and of course whales. We saw orcas on both trips plus minke whales.

 

http://www.island-adventures.com/

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Another whale watching excursion out of Anacortes is Mystic Sea Charters.

http://www.mysticseacharters.com/index.php?page=home

You can book as an individual or as a group. We did a whale watching trip with them and experienced amazing orca sightings. The orcas came right up to the boat. There was an onboard naturalist who was good with "one on one" questions as well as a general narrative on the orcas, sea birds and marine mammals.

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Hello BudgetQueen,

So nice to see you are still posting about Alaska. You were so helpful when I was a new cruiser and going to Alaska. It was 8 or so years ago, and we are pretty seasoned cruisers now and have been all over the world. We would love to go back to Alaska. This time my husband wants to definitely see Orca's. Last time we did first two weeks in June and had beautiful weather and an incredible b2b.

 

When do you suggest we go to see Orca's? I know there are never weather predictions that can be guaranteed, but trust you would know what to suggest is a good time to go. We would be sailing out of Vancouver. Any tips you want to share would be warmly and gratefully accepted.

 

Thanks and regards,

Eileen

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Well if you get lucky you'll see them without leaving town (search twitter or buzzfeed for "vancouver orcas" and you'll bring up plenty of links to videos and pictures of a pod that swam under Lions Gate bridge this morning, then back out past English Bay this afternoon). Another group hung out in English Bay 3 summers back hunting seals for most of the day.

 

These are of course unusual events - but Prince of Whales, Orca Spirit and probably all the other local tour operators do offer a free second trip if you don't see a whale first time out between May and October. All the companies claim a 95% spotting rate or better throughout that time of year so while it may not be the absolute certainty that is seeing humpbacks out of Juneau/ISP in season, it's close - if you are in Vancouver, Victoria, or up at the north end of the island for a couple of days you should be as close as possible to guaranteed you'll see Orcas within two trips.

 

Whether you'll have a really close encounter, see breaching, spy hopping, hunting, or just dorsals and blows at a distance is of course another matter. If you find whales at all though, it's pretty much a certainty that the captains will try to get you as close to the 100 metre/yard limit as they can (there have been fines levied against boats getting too close for years).

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Hello BudgetQueen' date='

So nice to see you are still posting about Alaska. You were so helpful when I was a new cruiser and going to Alaska. It was 8 or so years ago, and we are pretty seasoned cruisers now and have been all over the world. We would love to go back to Alaska. This time my husband wants to definitely see Orca's. Last time we did first two weeks in June and had beautiful weather and an incredible b2b.

 

When do you suggest we go to see Orca's? I know there are never weather predictions that can be guaranteed, but trust you would know what to suggest is a good time to go. We would be sailing out of Vancouver. Any tips you want to share would be warmly and gratefully accepted.

 

Thanks and regards,

Eileen[/quote']

 

 

Martin gives great suggestions. I too suggest you add time and spend a couple days in Victoria and plan on whale watches. If you have another 4/5 days, then head up to Port Hardy and Telegraph Cove. This is your best success area with an orca priority.

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Martin gives great suggestions. I too suggest you add time and spend a couple days in Victoria and plan on whale watches. If you have another 4/5 days, then head up to Port Hardy and Telegraph Cove. This is your best success area with an orca priority.

 

We are sailing out of Vancouver up to Alaska. Would we see Orca's? What month do you suggest?

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We are sailing out of Vancouver up to Alaska. Would we see Orca's? What month do you suggest?

 

Stay out until dark after setting sail, and up early, at least 1/2 hour prior to dawn. Need forward 180 viewing. Returning to Vancouver, be out from about mid afternoon, or earlier, if you are seeing land. And staying out- missing any sit down long dinner.

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If you mean "While cruising north from Vancouver will we see Orcas from the cruise ship?" the answer is "Maybe, but even if you're on deck through Johnstone Strait where they tend to be through the summer you probably won't see them very close up from a cruise ship so if seeing them is a priority plan on a small boat excursion."

 

Month is irrelevant in cruise season unless you plan a freakishly early cruise (April) - we have resident Orca pods which come in to eat the salmon near the coast as soon as they start running, so by May there are always pods conveniently close to shore and they hang around until October/November. There are also transients that can appear any time of year (the ones who visited town yesterday were transients chasing seals; our residents being fish-eaters offer less spectacular hunting behaviour but far greater likelihood of being spotted).

 

Duration is key - how long you stay on the water, how many trips you take. Given the May-October sighting stats, even out of Victoria 9 days out of 10 you're going to see Orcas. The exceptions come when the pods are too far from the port for the whalewatching boats to get to them and back in three hours.

 

I'm most familiar with the Southern resident pods, of which there are 3 totaling c.80 members (a couple of new calves this year, but still young enough their long-term survival is iffy) who sometimes gather together but can also be quite far apart: on a 'superpod' day you either see a crapload of Orcas or none at all depending where they are; most days though you'll see one or more pods or sub-pods doing their own thing.

 

I believe, and BQ can confirm yea or nay, that Telegraph Cove offers higher odds of sighting Orcas - tours here go into Johnstone Strait which is tight, so there's much less scope for the whales to be somewhere you can't get to them when they're around. The downside of multiple day visits to this end of the island is the extreme lack of non-nature-based activities to do.

 

Staying in Victoria offers more Stuff you can do when you're not on a whaleboat, and of course Vancouver offers even more with the downside that you spend a lot more time on buses getting to boat launches, and on boats getting to where the whales are.

 

Personally, if I wanted to guarantee seeing Orcas but balance it with doing other stuff I'd spend the weekend in Victoria and schedule a trip first day so you can take advantage of as many repeat free trips as needed to see your Orcas (Prince of Whales doesn't just offer a second trip free, but a *lifetime* 'repeat as many tours as needed until you finally see one' guarantee - although the zodiac repeat trips operate on standby only, whereas their larger vessels allow booking).

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Stay out until dark after setting sail, and up early, at least 1/2 hour prior to dawn. Need forward 180 viewing. Returning to Vancouver, be out from about mid afternoon, or earlier, if you are seeing land. And staying out- missing any sit down long dinner.

 

Awesome. So is August the month to go or would July be okay?

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Oops! Didn't see Martin's response before I asked about the month. However we have cruised to Alaska in June and saw many whales but never Orca's, we were told it was too early that's why I thought we had to go later in the summer. Now I'm confused. I'd rather go earlier in the summer from other research I've done, but if July or August would be better for Orca whale watching in Alaska, I would like to know that. I know I probably sound redundant, but I'm going by past experience for not seeing them in June.

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Oops! Didn't see Martin's response before I asked about the month. However we have cruised to Alaska in June and saw many whales but never Orca's' date=' we were told it was too early that's why I thought we had to go later in the summer. Now I'm confused. I'd rather go earlier in the summer from other research I've done, but if July or August would be better for Orca whale watching in Alaska, I would like to know that. I know I probably sound redundant, but I'm going by past experience for not seeing them in June.[/quote']

 

The resident orcas can be seen most of the Alaska cruise season. The most consistent area is by Vancouver Island. Transient orcas - no predictability and pure chance where. There is an orca resident pod out of Juneau but at best maybe seen 2 out of 7 days.

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If you have a choice of whale watching from Victoria, Vancouver, Telegraph Cove or Alaska with the hope of seeing orcas, go with Vancouver.

 

Why?

 

Whale watching boats will often go for whatever whales are closest, unless another species is a reasonable distance away and you'll get both. Victoria, Telegraph Cove and Alaska ports see more humpback whales than orcas. Vancouver, on the other hand, gets more orcas and the companies that depart from here are willing to travel farther (up to 3 hours distance to get to whales if they have to!).

 

Last summer we had a string of over 60 days with killer whales EVERY day. July and August see the highest success rate of 95%.

 

Take this from a person who works whale watching from Vancouver. ;)

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If you have a choice of whale watching from Victoria, Vancouver, Telegraph Cove or Alaska with the hope of seeing orcas, go with Vancouver.

 

Why?

 

Whale watching boats will often go for whatever whales are closest, unless another species is a reasonable distance away and you'll get both. Victoria, Telegraph Cove and Alaska ports see more humpback whales than orcas. Vancouver, on the other hand, gets more orcas and the companies that depart from here are willing to travel farther (up to 3 hours distance to get to whales if they have to!).

 

Last summer we had a string of over 60 days with killer whales EVERY day. July and August see the highest success rate of 95%.

 

Take this from a person who works whale watching from Vancouver. ;)

 

I've seen orcas every time I have gone out of Telegraph Cove and Port Hardy, so their stats are pretty high as well. Humpbacks weren't the majority. This is several trips over several years.

 

Since your trips are 6 hours, this is a big bonus with good sighting stats and are the tours to look for.

 

Not sure, if you can state the vendor, but disclose, where this tour leaves out of- specifically.

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