Grey Whales, Humpback Whales, Orca Whales!
Welcome to Adventures Pacific Homepage!
We are located in historic Tofino, British Columbia on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. We specialize in Whale Watching tours, Bear Watching adventures and excursions to remote and beautiful Hot Springs Cove. Adventures Pacific can also custom tailor tours to your specific needs such as organization outings, school groups and private tours.
Join us for a safe and fun boating adventure as we visit magnificent Grey whales on their annual migration from Baja Mexico on route to Alaska in the spring, or during the rest of the season as we watch our local 'Resident' Grey whales feeding here in Clayoquot Sound. In addition to a large population of Grey whales that feed and frolic in our backyard waters, we enjoy groups of Humpback whales breaching and lunge feeding! Also, frequent pods of Orca (Killer) whales! Clayoquot Sound waters are also home to sea lions (California and Stellars), seals, Dalls porpoise, sea otters, sea birds and at the waters edge, beautiful Black Bears and Bald Eagles in action!
  
Our friendly, experienced and expert guides will lead you on exciting and informative programs perfect for every traveler!
For the adventurous, we Whale Watch aboard our rigid-hull Zodiacs called the "SEA FIRE" and "SEA HAWK", and we provide protective gear. For the comfort of every member of the family, we offer our cabin cruiser Whale Watching Vessel called the
"SEA STAR" equipped with a heated cabin, large windows and an outdoor viewing deck.
Every trip is unique and memorable for you, your friends and family. Join us today!
  
Come Whale Watching and Learn about the Whales We See!
Pacific Grey Whales and Humpbacks are our most commonly sighted whales but we often see Orca Whales and occasionally Minke Whales during different times in the season.
Each Spring approximately 24,000 Grey Whales (Eschrichtius robustus) migrate about 8,000 kilometres from their calving and breeding lagoons in Baja Mexico past our Tofino shores on route to the Bering and Chukchi Seas off Siberia. Tofino provides the best viewing of this migration from March to May at which time several of these gorgeous whales stay on and feed here until the end of October. Mid November we say good-bye to our "resident" Grey Whales as they will head out offshore on their southern migration.
Grey Whales do not have teeth. Instead they have Baleen plates. Two hundred and twenty of these 1/4" thick plates which are made out of keratin like our fingernails hang from their upper jaw. They feed mostly on tubeworm and small crustaceans such as shrimp. After taking several breaths through two blowholes on the top of their heads, Grey Whales will rise and then dive to the oceans bottom where they roll onto their right side and dig their noses into the sandy floor. They will shuffle along the mucky bottom propelled by their tails and sucking up a mix of sand, water and food. They push all this against their baleen plates with a huge tongue to filter out the sand & water. Grey whales will consume around two tonnes of food each day in water as shallow as 10 feet to 200 feet in depth! We watch Grey whales feeding close to shore and are often rewarded with beautiful tail fluking and spyhopping.
Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) returned early to Clayoquot Sound this year. These large whales (11 to 16 meters in length) spend their summers in our cooler West Vancouver island waters and their numbers peak in July and August. There has been an increase in the sightings of Humpback whales each year and scientists and researchers studying the whales believe this rebound in the Humpack population may be correlated to the marked resurgence of pilchards (sardines) to our area.
Humpback Whales can be very exciting to watch. They are popular for their acrobatic behaviour and whale song. We often catch them breaching, pec-slapping with their extra long front fins and for their magnificent surface lateral lunge feeding. Humpbacks feed on krill (euphausiids), plankton and small fish like herring, anchovies and pilchards.
The largest and most dramatic member of the oceanic dolphin family is Orcinus orca or as most people know them...Killer whales. Orca can grow as large as 9 meters in length. There are four sub-species of killer whale on the West Coast and all of them visit Tofino waters. The transients that we see regularly about every 2 weeks live on the West Coast of North America and feed mostly on mammals; sea lions, seals and other whales. The Southern Shore and North Shore residents that we see feed mostly on fish. The Orca are often seen in family groups called "pods" but transients and residents differ in group size, social structure and feeding strategies developed to take advantage of the prominent food resource available to them.
To learn more about these fabulous creatures and to enjoy them in their natural marine environment, we invite you to join us for an adventure which will leave you touched forever. Even just a glimpse of these wandering giants inhabiting our oceans can bring out a strange deep affection and awe of our beautiful planet.
   
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