First whale sightings!

Our tours have been heading out daily in search of whales. We've spotted a couple of gray whales in Boundary Bay and we've had a few encounters with transient killer whales as well. There are still very large groups of Stellar Sea Lions hanging out at the Bell Chains and California Sea Lions at the end of the river. The weather has been pretty typical of springtime in Vancouver; a few windy days along with some showers. The sun is out today and we hope it sticks around! Call our office at 1-888-272-7203 to make your booking.

Spring Sailings

Hello everybody!

Well it's April and that means we're back up and running! This month has started out with some extremely windy days but we were still able to head out on a couple of trips. We haven't had any whale sightings just yet, but we have seen huge numbers of both California and Stellar sea lions. Last year, April was a great month for spotting gray whales so we'll be on the lookout for their return. Hope to see you on the water with us soon!

End of season

Sorry for the long delay since our last blog! We are now finished for the season and we will re-open on April 1st.

2009 was an excellent year for us. We were extremely lucky with the weather all summer. We continued our sailings right through October and our last trip went out on October 28th.


Although we are not in the office on a regular schedule, we check our messages and email daily, so please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or if you would like to make any bookings for the 2010 season for fishing, whale watching, or sea lion tours.

Happy Holidays from the staff at Steveston Seabreeze Adventures

August 2009

August is our busiest month of the year and we have been out almost everyday. All of our August sightings were of orcas, both the resident and transient type. The weather has been amazing. We only had 2 trips cancelled due to winds, and only 3 trips with no whales.

We've been lucky this month to have the whales not far from the Fraser River on quite a few trips. Since most of the companies depart from Victoria, we don't usually have too many boats around when the whales are further north. We always try to abide by whale watching guidelines when we are on scene with whales. Currently, a vessel is required to stay 100m away from the whales, however, that limit is in review and may be increased to 200m. We have been encouraging passengers to sign a petition against that as there is no scientific evidence that such an increase would benefit the whales. You can find more information on the current guidelines here: http://pacificwhalewatch.org/guidelines. If you are interested in reading and/or signing the petition, please contact our office!

The salmon have been steadily migrating upriver to their spawning grounds. We've seen lots of fish jumping out of the water as they make their way up. The bald eagles have also started moving upriver with the salmon, so our eagle sightings along the river have been sparse, though we have still seen quite a few throughout the islands. We had a couple of days with sightings of peregrine falcons, which we don't often encounter.

The Canada Line skytrain is finally in operation and seems to be quite busy. We've still continued our shuttle pickups from downtown, but some passengers have decided to make use of public transit to have some extra time in Steveston.

School is back in session and we've changed our schedule to fall hours. We now just operate one sailing a day at 11 AM. Contact our office if you'd like to make a booking.

July 2009 sightings and August specials!

July was a great month for whale watching. We've been very busy and have only had to cancel 5 trips due to high winds. We're in our peak season at the moment so it's a great time to be out on the water. We had a heat wave for about a week and everybody was trying to get out on the water just to cool down! We only had 5 days in the month of July where we couldn't find any whales, and as always, our passengers all received free passes to come back again anytime.

Our sightings all month have been of orcas, though we have seen both the resident and transient type. We have had some very long trips lasting about 6 hours due to the whales being south of Race Rocks near Victoria, but we've made up for it with some short trips when the whales are right outside of the Fraser River where we depart from.

The whales have put on some theatrical performances for us this month, complete with breaching, spyhopping, tail lobbing, pectoral fin slapping, rolling, cartwheeling, and porpoising. On one trip, we even had two whales breach together in synchronization. It was the perfect photo opportunity but it all comes down to luck!

We had an encounter with a group of transients in the Straight of Georgia around the end of the month. They were teaching a young calf how to hunt so we were able to witness a couple of kills, which isn't for the faint hearted. The first kill was of a harbour seal and the second was of a harbour porpoise. We didn't see much of the seal, but the porpoise would continue surfacing trying to get away. We kept thinking it was the last we would see of the porpoise, and it would pop up again. You couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the poor creature, but we were lucky to witness the hunt as most of the action usually happens undewater.

We've got just one month left of two sailings a day. We're anxious for the skytrain to start running into Richmond, which will make it much easier for our passengers to get to us from downtown. Our shuttle service is still offering free transportation with pickups directly from downtown or Richmond hotels, though once the skytrain is in operation, we will be picking up passengers from the Richmond Centre stop instead.

While we are no longer offering our buy 3 get 1 free special, we are still offering 15% off of our regular rates. Just be sure to mention the discount during your booking process.

Stay tuned for August sightings!

June sightings

June has been full of surprises for us. We've had to cancel a few days due to high winds and some of our days have had no whale sightings. Whenever we don't encounter whales, we give our passengers free passes to come back on another trip whenever they like. Of course it's a bit of a disappointment for our passengers, but we've had some amazing encounters with porpoises (around 30 or more) that we don't often see on our whale watch tours.

Surprisingly, we still had a few encounters with sealions at the beginning of the month. In all of the years we've been whale watching, we don't remember ever having the sealions around once June arrived. We're not sure why they decided to spend so much longer here, but as always, our passengers definitely enjoyed seeing them!

For the first week of June, we had several sightings of gray whales. They were very active on some days, with lots of spyhopping and rolling behaviour at the surface. Unfortunately for us, they've now left the area and have continued on their migration. We were lucky to have them here for nearly 2 months!

On the 12th of June, captains, guides, and guests alike were all thrilled to have our first encounter with humpback whales this season. We met up with 2 whales in the Straight of Georgia where they were lunge feeding. It was amazing to watch and we had a few glimpses of tail flukes as the whales took a deep dive underwater. Humpbacks are one of the largest whales we encounter in this area (they can be longer than our boats!).

In the Pacific Northwest, we celebrate "Orca Month" in June. It's usually a great time for sightings of superpods, but this month, most of our southern resident orcas decided to take a little holiday and we didn't catch up with them until mid-June. We had a couple of encounters with K20 and her calf K38 in the second week of June. It was a bit unusual as these two whales are usually with the rest of K pod. We've only had one encounter with transient orcas this month. The rest of the residents returned on June 19th and we had our first superpod on June 21st (when all three pods are together). Our guests were so happy when they returned. When the whales form a superpod, they tend to get quite active and may breach (jump out of the water) several times in a row. It's very exciting to watch. They look like they're having a lot of fun!

Hopefully the whales don't decide to take another holiday in July.

Til next time....

Special offers!!

As we head into June we have some great offers for our passengers who book in advance.

If you bring a group of 4 people, you only pay for 3 and the 4 person goes free!

If you book less than 4 people, you'll receive 15% off our regular rates.

We're also offering free shuttle service and we pick you up directly from your hotel. Space is limited on our shuttle so make sure you book early to avoid disappointment!

Hope to see you on the water with us soon.