This week my parents and I went out whale watching, and we found a pair of whales that gave us a great show.

Whale watching is supposed to be boring

Most tales of whale watching include something like “we didn’t see any whales”, or “we saw a few spouts in the distance, and I got seasick”.

The last time I went whale watching in Juneau was about 2 hours after landing here in June 2013. A perpetual “it’s about the journey, not the destination” subscriber, I was ok with going out and seeing zero whales. Nothing wrong with a nice boat ride in beautiful scenery, right? Well, I was pleasantly surprised. I went out on a large tour boat and saw a mother and calf. The calf jumped out of the water several times, the weather was great, and I was convinced that I had a uniquely positive whale watching experience.

Several years later, I assumed there was no way I could see repeat performance, right?

A three hour tour

Unfortunately many small businesses in Juneau are hurting because the massive swell of tourists from cruise ships will not be arriving this summer. Larger tour companies are closed for the season, but smaller businesses are still around and suddenly much more available for locals who usually have to compete with tourists. Because of all of the cancellations, I was able to book a last-minute private charter tour with a great local company, 49th Fathom. My parents and I met our Captain at the marina in Auke Bay, backpacks in tow, and boarded her ridiculously clean boat for a private charter whale watching adventure. She took us to a spot where some whales were spotted the previous day, and we all helped spot the spouts so we could race over to see them!

Spotting our first whales

Humpback whales appear on the surface as big spouts from their blowholes followed by a curved back with a tiny dorsal fin. Our first sightings of spouts led us to a large humpback whale.

Shortly after we arrived we saw her dive (when the tail humps up and then “waves” at you before going under the surface). This is generally all you see of the massive whales from the surface. Our guide indicated that this was a dive, and the whale could be under for up to 6 minutes.

As we were waiting, another spout popped up, and it turned out to be a calf:

Humpback whale IDs

We could tell for sure that we had two different humpback whales because their tail patterns are unique for each whale, like a fingerprint, and the tail patterns are often used to identify whales since you can’t exactly see their faces much when they’re under the surface. You can see below mama whale “Flame” on the left, and her calf “Bunson” on the right. Bunson was pretty shy about showing his tail when diving, but I managed to catch it at least once.

Breaching Baby

As we were waiting for them to surface again, the little guy leaped out of the water, twisting in the air and flopping onto his back with a big splash. He proceeded to jump out of the water doing all kinds of acrobatics. I wouldn’t call his movements graceful, but there was an unmistakeable joy in the way he threw his massive body out of the water and landed with a big splash. It was not only a rare sight, but really fun to watch.

As Captain Shelby predicted, mama whale did not appreciate this horseplay and eventually surfaced to put and end to it. The two dove again to focus on lunch.

Other stars of the sea

While the whales were the main stars of our show, we also rode over to the Point Retreat lighthouse, and the nearby buoy that is a popular spot for sea lions to dry out.

Close encounter

Right before ending our tour, we went back to visit our two favorite whales again. We watched them dive, and waited for them to come back up. Mama whale popped up right next to the boat, almost bumping into us! We watched them swim for a bit from a very close vantage before they both dove again.

To sum up – it was great. We were lucky to have calm water and spend a lot of time with two lovely whales.