Our whale watching excursion exceeded all of our expectations. The naturalist, Kat, and Captain Bo were fantastic. Within 30 minutes of leaving the dock we saw our first orcas. We stayed with those for about 30 minutes, and then Bo spotted a humpback whale. After viewing that for a while, we went back to the orcas. This time, the boat was brought up to the area where the orcas were hunting and Captain Bo shut down the engines. We just drifted in that area, and the orcas actually came over to the boat and at times were within 10' of us. The only two boats that were with these orcas were from Outer Island Expeditions. Earlier in the evening, we had seen boats from other companies, but when we came upon this second pod, the Outer Island were the only two boats there. The naturalist had a hydrophone which she used to pick up the whales communicating to one another. It was amazing. If you want a great trip with a staff that loves and respects the whales, you can't go wrong with Outer Island expeditions. We left from Orcas Island, but they have boats at other locations also.