Orca Whale Sightings

[masterdrago]

Wondering where the best area is to spot Orca Whales. When doing a search, it comes up SE Alaska, Prince William Sound, San Juan Islands, Washington, Vancouver Island, Inside Passage, etc. Major Marine Tours has a Orca Quest Cruise out of Seward, mid May to Mid June. Other whale watch cruise tours say they only spot Orcas 20-30% of the time when out. Does anyone have experience they can share with spotting them on the Major Marine tour?

[quack2]

I've seen orcas on the boat tours out of Seward (Major Marine and Kenai Fjords) and while whale watching in Icy Strait.   Definitely not every time though.

 

[mapleleaves]

if you're staying in Seattle for a day or 2, I highly recommend Island Adventures out of Anacortes WA ( about an hr north of Seattle ).  I've taken their 5hr cruise a few times with great success.  It's a scenic trip past lighthouses, ferries, farms, the San Juan Islands, plus we see sealions, seals, bald eagles, a resident minke whale, and of course the orcas.    https://www.island-adventures.com/

 

[Italy52]

We took the Major Marine Orca Quest last May in hopes of seeing orcas.  For the majority of the trip we didn't see one orca and we were a little disappointed.  However, as we were making our way back to Seward our captain received word over the radio that orcas had been spotted so he quickly turned the vessel around and headed in the direction of the activity.  When we arrived, we were able to see about 4 orcas moving about in the water --- we were very happy to see these beautiful creatures. 

[martincath]

The fact that you're considering Seward guarantees you're on a Vancouver one-way cruise MD - so while I certainly don't disagree that you could go whalewatching out of Anacortes with a high success rate, it's an awful lot easier to get one out of Vancouver instead! I don't know what % success for Orcas the MM orcawatch claims, but they are transients that come in to eat baby seals - which are easy targets at that time of year until they get better at avoiding Orca!

 

Your best bet is almost certainly Vancouver (unless you are also spending time in Victoria), as from April to October all of our local whalewatches out of Vancouver/Richmond and Victoria claim 95% 'whale sightings' - and Orca are the bread & butter species. They are fast and roam far, so some times they're just too far from any given port down here on the Salish Sea, but it's probably still 80% Orca success or better across the whole season. All companies also offer a 'no whales, free trip!' guarantee so eventually you will see something good even if you have to visit us for years on end 😉

 

[capriccio]

Not on a tour but we were incredibly lucky to be sitting on our balcony as our ship was exiting Glacier Bay early last July and a group of 3 orcas swam by paralleling our ship in the other direction.  We watched for quite some time.

[kjmcneil89]

2 hours ago, martincath said:

The fact that you're considering Seward guarantees you're on a Vancouver one-way cruise MD - so while I certainly don't disagree that you could go whalewatching out of Anacortes with a high success rate, it's an awful lot easier to get one out of Vancouver instead! I don't know what % success for Orcas the MM orcawatch claims, but they are transients that come in to eat baby seals - which are easy targets at that time of year until they get better at avoiding Orca!

 

Your best bet is almost certainly Vancouver (unless you are also spending time in Victoria), as from April to October all of our local whalewatches out of Vancouver/Richmond and Victoria claim 95% 'whale sightings' - and Orca are the bread & butter species. They are fast and roam far, so some times they're just too far from any given port down here on the Salish Sea, but it's probably still 80% Orca success or better across the whole season. All companies also offer a 'no whales, free trip!' guarantee so eventually you will see something good even if you have to visit us for years on end 😉

 

 

Major Marine says that the orcas they see during that time of year are mostly resident orcas that are in the area for the king salmon run and they see them on 80% of the trips. I think it depends on what time of year you will be visiting.

[martincath]

15 minutes ago, kjmcneil89 said:

Major Marine says that the orcas they see during that time of year are mostly resident orcas that are in the area for the king salmon run and they see them on 80% of the trips. I think it depends on what time of year you will be visiting.

Thanks for the info. I know from various research organizations that (edit) Alaska Residents are much less specific in their diets than the (edit) Northern/Southern Residents, so assumed they were eating salmon/mackerel/squid/all sorts throughout the season, and it was the baby seals that were most attractive to Transients at that time (since if it was salmon, there would be logically be other runs throughout the summer that should entice them them to stay around and therefore Orca should be seen more frequently throughout the season rather than just during the ~4 weeks that MM runs their tour - maybe Kings hit the sweetspot for them in terms of prey size?)

Edited April 15, 2019 by martincath
Wrong orca pop mentioned, and terrible fish-spelling;-)

[masterdrago]

Correct that we are on a SB Seward to Vancouver with 8 days of DIY land tour. We have a rent car and we were quibbling when to return it to Anchorage airport (rent car prices keep falling w/another $20 drop for our 8 day). I finally won out and by returning it on the day of departure (8pm), we came up with a free day to explore. We were going to try the drive to Homer from our hotel at Alyeska but decided against it for time reasons. We have a full day glacier tour in Prince William Sound the day prior. We had originally had that full day with Major Marine but last October, they cancelled their Prince William Sound tours and moved all their operations to Resurrection Bay and Kenai Fjords National Park. Their 10am departure for the 7.5 hr was too early for Joy coming from Alyeska (what can I say - she is a late sleeper with long breakfast routines). We had to scrap that plan. But now with the, at least half day available, we found their recent addition to their tours (2017) - Orca Quest Cruise. After speaking with them today and spending a whopping amount of time sifting through the reviews on Trip Adviser - found nothing negative in the May Orca tours 2 years ago. Also reading on CC, I'm going to book it because it appears that is the only goal of that tour - find Orca whales.

[lizmit]

We went on a whale watching boat in Victoria BC and saw a huge pod of about 100 orcas.  It was amazing!!!  The last cruise we went on we saw a few orcas on our way home through the inside passage

Happy sails

~ Liz

Edited April 23, 2019 by lizmit

[donaldsc]

I have done 3 Major Marine cruises out of Seward.  One time we saw more orcas than the captain has ever seen in his life.  One time we saw a few.  One time we saw none.  I guess that it depends.

 

DON

[masterdrago]

Just a note - we will be in Vancouver for at most, a couple of hours. Renting a car and getting out of Dodge.

Most of the tours I've read about and booked claim Orcas are seen 20-30% of the time on excursions. The Major Marine cruise that we have just signed up for last week of May is an Orca hunt only. I'm not sure how they can isolate only the Orca to hunt. But that is what the tour is called - https://majormarine.com/tour/orca-quest-cruise/

Edited April 23, 2019 by masterdrago

[Crew News]

I saw a number of orcas in Juneau, Auke Bay, a few years ago and one decided to swim right beside our whale-watching boat.

 

[AnnaNicole]

On 4/22/2019 at 11:38 PM, lizmit said:

We went on a whale watching boat in Victoria BC and saw a huge pod of about 100 orcas.  It was amazing!!!  The last cruise we went on we saw a few orcas on our way home through the inside passage

Happy sails

~ Liz

Hi Liz,

 

What time of year was it?   Also, did you book through the ship or private tour?

[lizmit]

Hi AnnaNicole we had gone on the whale watching boat in early May years ago and I think we booked on our own.  The cruise where we saw them in the inside passage was in mid September.  I just googled the best time and place to see orca - here's the link:  https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g154922-c95123/British-Columbia:Canada:Whale.Watching.html

It's an old post but should still be correct.  Check out whale watching from Vancouver and see what they say.  

See you soon

~ Liz

[lynncarol]

We took a Kenai Fjords excursion out of Seward several years ago in September.  The weather was so bad the captain eventually aborted the last hour of the cruise and we were all given a partial refund.  However, one wonderful consolation: during this ride we encountered a big pod of Orcas who were obviously fishing in the same direction we were heading for almost twenty minutes. So exciting!

Edited April 26, 2019 by lynncarol

[AnnaNicole]

Thanks, Liz.   🙂

 

We have a Mendenhall Glacier whale watch booked for Juneau.   But we thought we might like to do the zodiac whale watch in Victoria, as well.

 

We are going at the end of May.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by AnnaNicole