Orca whale watch by evening in Victoria - Anyone do this?

[labrador2]

We are booked with HAL on the Amsterdam in August and have an excursion booked in Victoria - the evening orca watch. I'm wondering if anyone has ever done this. Your opinion will be greatly appreciated.

[Yukon]

We took it and it was good (we were on the Amsterdam as well). It was very cold (in July) and the water was very rough, but lots of heavy jackets were provided for those on the top deck (it was much too rough to get inside once you'd made a choice!) and we did get close to several orca. Would I recommend it? Probably not unless you get very good weather or have an extremely high interest in seeing orca (my wife did).

[Yukon]

Here's what most of us on the top deck looked like that evening - http://bp3.blogger.com/_RxFY441IDfw/RrAqPdIIyZI/AAAAAAAAClA/9xqfEERGQg0/s1600-h/passengersjuly26pm3.JPG (this was shot by our guide) :D

[Budget Queen]

You also must be accepting of no orcas. These ship contracted tours are shorter than the regular runs, which means the the 3 resident southern orca pods have to be within a closer range. They have hundreds of miles around Vancouver Island.

 

I was three days, end of June waiting for them to come in, with successive trips booked, and they never did get close enough. BIG difference in my case, is I have a great relationship with the vendor and they updated me, via phone. "Regular" people, won't have this advantage, as these trips go out as scheduled. They know ahead if they are going to see orcas or not. There is a whole network of Vancouver Island spotters, which report in throughout the day.

[karatemom2]

We did an evening whale watch out of Victoria a couple of years ago and it is still one of our favorite excursions. It was a gorgeous evening (we were there in August), the seas were like glass. It did get a little cool and breezy on deck, but nothing that would interfere with being outside. Seeing the Orcas with the sun setting in the background was amazing. Here are a couple of photos.

 

[diathoney]

We were planning to do a tour through Eagle Wing tours until we switched from the Pearl to the Zuiderdam. The guy (Brett?) was really nice and accommodating - even when we canceled to switch ships. He said there is a pod of Orcas that is pretty permanent around Victoria.