Whale Watching on Auke Bay
Since Keith only has one day off per week, we decided to do some sightseeing on Thursday since it was our only day to hang together. As he is a seasonal worker here, he has not seen much of the area himself. Prior to my arrival, he mentioned whale watching as an option which I was totally excited about. As my flight had got in late the night before, we both slept in a little and then finally wandered out and about around
We opted to do the 
On this particular tour, you take a bus from the downtown area to 
Our group was pretty small which was nice - I believe there were 10 of us on this large boat so it was like a private tour and the Naturalist had ample opportunity to speak with everyone and answer any questions. One of the first questions was the type of whales we expected to see. Obviously humpbacks were number one but the whale on everyone’s mind was the orca. She explained that the Orcas are very hit or miss in sightings. Sometimes they can go a week or two without seeing any.
We were only out a short time and low and behold - the captain spotted a family of Orcas! We stopped for quite a while and followed the family around. Of course, I had not brought the big camera with me on this trip (stupid me) and having a camera with even the slightest of delays caused me to lose most of the pristine shots of the whales.
After moving on from the Orca whales, we made our way down the channel in search of the humpbacks. It seemed like we had barely traveled any distance and we spotted the first of three. What a contrast from the Orca whales which were visible on the surface much more. The humpback whale can stay down for 7-8 minutes at a time and usually when you see their tail, they are on a long dive in search of food. Our naturalist advised that food is somewhat scarce so the chance of seeing any whales breaching (or playing around) is pretty slim these days as they are mainly on the hunt for their food sources.
After we finished our whale watching trip, both Keith and I were already getting pretty tired.
Everything on their menu looked fabulous and seeing other peoples’ orders, it appeared some things were large portions. One thing to note about food prices in 
Since it is pretty much light all night, 
By this time, we had scarfed down our fish and consumed a few beers and I was thoroughly exhausted. It was like 7pm and we had planned to watch the fireworks at midnight so we opted to go back and relax/nap a little in hopes of getting our second wind for the evening…….
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The highlight of whale watching in this area is the humpback sightings. Unfortunately, due to a shortage of food, the humpbacks are not as playful and do not breach as often because they spend their time searching for food so do not be disappointed if you do not see a whale in a magnificent breach like you see on posters and on TV.
If you are lucky, you will get an Orca sighting which is said to be somewhat rare. We lucked out that day and saw Orcas right off the bat - the guide said it was only the 2nd time in two weeks they had been spotted. You definitely need a telephoto lens and a camera without a delay to capture good shots of these guys! Seems like they are up and gone in an instant!
We did see a couple humpbacks which require a significant amount of patience to spot. They can go down for approximately 7-8 minutes on a dive in search of food! And don't expect them to pop up anywhere near where you think as they will be on the opposite side of the boat from what you thought!
It seemed like the 3 hours flew by and I had hoped we would've seen more whales but considering we spent a considerable chunk of the tour following the Orcas, I was happy with the overall experience. What I didn't know at the time though was that I was going to do the Tracy Arm Fjord tour two days later which provided better whale watching opportunities!
My recommendation is that if you only have part of a day to do sightseeing, then do a whale watching tour but if you have a full day or multiple days to explore, do not waste the extra $120-$150 on the whale watching itself - put it towards the Fjord tour where you still see seals, bald eagles, humpbacks, and we even saw Orcas twice during the trip!
