best places to see whales
I love whales. There’s something about their massive size, the way they move through the sea and how you can often see them from shore that makes me want to travel to different coastal areas just to see these majestic creatures up close. This travel guide covers some of the top places in the world where you can spot killer whales, humpbacks and other species of whales without too much effort. Read on below for a quick tour around the world | see all at once with the table of contents.
Many people dream of seeing a whale in the wild. Along the coast of California you can see whales on most trips. The best time to see whales is right after a pod has eaten. This means you should go out with lunch or dinner time trips in spring and summer. Additionally, you should also go out between February and April because this is when the grey whales migrate from Alaska to Mexico. Another great place for seeing humpback, finback and grays whales would be off of Vancouver Island in British Columbia Canada from May to September.
The best places to see whales are in the Pacific Northwest, off the coast of Alaska, and in the Arctic. These areas are known for their large populations of humpback whales, which are one of the most common whale species in the world. You may also see beluga whales, blue whales, orcas, and sperm whales depending on where you go.
If you’re looking to see some whales, we’ve got some great places for you to check out.
- Vancouver Island, Canada
Vancouver Island is home to a number of whales, including the blue whale. The island is also home to a number of whale-watching companies that can take you out on their boats for a chance to see these majestic creatures up close.
- Long Beach, Washington
In Long Beach, Washington there are several companies that offer tours where you can see orcas and other types of whales. If you go during the winter months (December through March), you’ll have an even better chance of seeing them because they tend to migrate south during this time period.
- Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts
Cape Cod Bay is also known as “America’s Dolphin Capital” because it’s home to so many dolphins, including bottle-nosed dolphins and Atlantic white-sided dolphins (which are rare). You can go on a tour with one of the many companies that offer trips into the bay during certain times of year (typically late spring through early fall) or rent your own boat and head out on your own!
Sperm whales are the best whales to start whale watching, by far. First of all, sperm whales are the most famous and most well known (Moby Dick!) whales of all. Second, they only appear in a few places on the planet but are very reliable to be found there. Third, they are easy to locate by hydrophone and even easier to identify by their blow, which is slightly tilted to the left, and their massive tail. And last but not least, they usually lie motionless in the water after resurfacing after a dive and always raise their fluke before diving again. This guarantees the best photos. All of that makes sperm whales the perfect whale watching whales.
But that would be too good to be true.
Because sperm whales have a unique feature among the big whales: Teeth and their predatory nature. I admit having mixed emotions, when I stood in front of a life-sized model of a 20 meter sperm whale in Andenes, Norway, knowing that I would soon be crossing a deep sea canyon, filled with sperm whales, in a 5 meter Zodiac. Sperm whale teeth are the size of a fist – assuming that you have a big fist. A sperm whale’s mouth is home to more than 40 of those. They use those to go hunting for deep sea squid in a depth of 2.000 meters. Scars and scratches on the whales’ giant heads indicate that the squid usually don’t play along willingly. Deep sea canyon, giant squid, monstrous teeth. Riding on top of those in a 5 meter Zodiac might let you have second thoughts.
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Even if “Moby Dick” tried to convince you otherwise, sperm whales are completely peaceful and social animals. Basically, sperm whales are like cows – only smarter and a lot more fascinating. For example, sperm whales have the biggest head of all animals anywhere. It can amount to one third of the whole body, making it the size of a pick-up truck. That big head is home to the biggest brain on Earth (up to 8 kilos) and enormous amounts of yellowish wax-like oil (called “spermaceti”, hence the animal’s alternative name “sperm whale”), which was the reason why sperm whales were hunted to the brink of extinction.
The oil is most likely used for controlling buoyancy during dives. It can be heated or cooled by the sea water, altering its density. At higher density, the whale sinks down; at lower density the whale goes upwards. That’s at least one theory – it’s still uncertain, if and how the sperm whale uses the oil in his head for his ultra deep dives.
However, no question is that sperm whales dive to depths of two to three kilometers (!), holding their breath up to 120 minutes (!). During longer dives, their heart rate goes down significantly and only the most important organs (heart and brain) are supplied with blood. During extreme dives, the animal can even collapse its lungs, relying solely on the oxygen reserves in its blood and muscles. In situations like those, it certainly seems like a good idea to have a built-in automatic resurfacing programming.
Sperm whales have the largest head in the entire animal kingdom – it is about the size of a standard pickup truck.
To this, the oil is also used as an acoustic lens. Like bats, the whale relies on echo-location to find its prey when it goes hunting in the pitch dark depths. Sperm whales constantly send short clicking-sounds, which are reflected by objects ahead and then get received and processed.
That way, sperm whales can hunt for giant squid in great depths at high speed. There are, however, no long pursuits: A sperm whale can emit signals so loud that its prey is possibly stunned for a short period of time: With clicks reaching up to 236 (!) decibel sperm whales are the loudest animals in the world. Ranked second is the blue whale with about 180 decibel recorded. Still louder than any Motörhead show.
Those short clicking sounds are also what whale watchers use to locate sperm whales: The ocean is scanned with a hydrophone and as soon as the clicking stops, the whale is about to surface.