Quebec City Whale Watching Tours

We had given up on the fog when the naturalist told everyone to go quiet. Then we heard it before we saw it, a long rush of air somewhere off the port side. A fin whale came out of the grey maybe two boat lengths away, so long that the back kept rolling past after the blowhole had gone under. Half the deck gasped at once. Our driver on the way home pulled over above the river so we could watch the light go orange over Charlevoix. Long day, worth getting up for.

My father is 81 and was nervous about the boat. The big boat had a warm room with huge windows, a café and proper toilets, so he stayed inside with a coffee and came out each time the guide called a whale. When the lounge filled up after the second wharf, a crew member found him a chair by the window without being asked. When a humpback lifted its tail right off the bow, he was at the rail before I was. He has told the story at every family dinner since.

I travel alone and do not drive, so the bus was the only way for me. The guide on the coach told stories about every village, the old churches, the hills where the meteorite fell, and the time passed easily. On the Zodiac we waited a long time with nothing, and then two fin whales surfaced together and blew at the same moment, a sound I did not expect, deep and wet. The jacket they gave me kept most of the spray out. I was cold, happy and very hungry, because I had not bought the lunchbox. Buy the lunchbox.

I booked the Zodiac for my daughter, who is fourteen and wants to study marine biology. She asked the naturalist questions for two hours and the naturalist answered every one, about krill, about why the belugas are white, about the cold water that comes up from the deep channel. We saw minkes, fin whales and a group of seals asleep on a rock. On the way back the pilot slowed down near the cliffs of the fjord and switched off the engine so we could hear the water. My daughter now has a whale poster above her bed and a new list of universities.

We took the day trip so nobody had to drive after a late night in the old city. The coach left right at 9, the guide pointed out the falls and the island on the way out of town, and we stopped at a lookout above Baie-Saint-Paul for photos. At the wharf we ate our sandwiches in the sun, then the big boat took us out past the lighthouse. Belugas first, then a minke, then a long wait, then a fin whale that surfaced three times beside us. Back at the fountain just after dark. I slept the whole way home and felt no guilt about it.

My husband gets seasick on ferries, so we booked the bus trip with the big boat and sat in the middle of the lower lounge near the windows. He was fine the whole time. The naturalist spoke English and French and switched without effort, and she seemed to know each whale by how it moved. We saw belugas near Tadoussac, a minke that kept circling the boat, and far out a blow so tall the guide said it could be a blue whale. She would not promise. I loved that she would not promise.