Humpback whales pause for YouTube close-up off B.C. coast
'It's almost like a spiritual experience, when you have an animal that large come up to you.'
A pair of humpback whales treated the passengers on a West Coast adventure tour to a spectacular show this past weekend near Prince Rupert, B.C.
Doug Davis, the boat captain for Prince Rupert Adventure Tours, knew there was a large group of humpback whales in the area, but he wasn't prepared for the front-row seat he got on Saturday.
As he drove the boat full of eager whale watchers north toward Port Simpson, he spotted some of the humpbacks feeding.
Suddenly, two of the whales popped up from under the bow.
"So I shut off the engine," Davis said.
As the boat sat there, the pair of humpbacks hung around for over an hour as the spectators took in the show in awe.
"It's almost like a spiritual experience, when you have an animal that large come up to you," Davis said.
"The other humpbacks kept a bit more distance, but they were still visible to the watchers."
"This is the most amount of whales I've ever seen. Their numbers keep growing each year," he said.
"You can identify the whales by the bottom of their tails and I've been seeing the same whales I first saw 20 years ago."
With files from the CBC's Matthew Low