Day- or half-day trips from the city are becoming massively popular. A couple of years ago there were just two or three companies running trips: now you can hardly move for them. Most offer almost identical trips at identical prices, typically around $55 to $80 for a three-hour outing. Most offer full protective gear, and towels and gloves when required, and all offer life jackets and other safety essentials. Most have a naturalist, or at least a knowledgeable crew member, to fill you in on what you're seeing (or not). The only real variables are the boats used, so you need to decide whether you want rigid-hull cruisers (covered or uncovered), which are more comfortable and sedate (and usually most expensive at around $80), a catamaran ($69-80), or the high-speed aluminium-hull inflatables known as "zodiacs" ($55-80), which are infinitely more exhilarating, but can offer a fast and sometimes bumpy ride that makes them unsuitable for pregnant women, young children or people with back problems. They won't have toilets on board either. You might also want to find out whether your chosen company has hydrophone equipment that enables you to listen to the whales' underwater vocalizing.

Note that morning trips can be less choppy than afternoon excursions (bad weather will halt tours), and be sure to take sunglasses, sun block, a tight-fitting hat, good soft-soled footwear, a sound plastic bag for camera and films and a warm sweater. Smoking is invariably not allowed on boats. If you're here just for the day and travelling on zodiacs you might want to bring a change of clothing. Trips often run a little over the scheduled time, so don't make any hard-and-fast plans for catching buses or ferries.

Drop by the Victoria Infocentre for details of the tours and options. Its pamphlet racks are stuffed with brochures if you want to compare companies' PR material. Staff can book you a place on any tour, and if you call in early morning they'll probably have the lowdown from the companies on whether whales have been found that day. Companies tend to pool their information, and dash headlong to any sighting. The question of whether the upsurge in boat activity is disturbing the whales or changing their habits seems not to have been addressed. Rules are in place regarding the distance boats must remain from the creatures, but even some of the companies' own photographs seem to suggest boats are getting in extremely close. It can only be a matter of time before the whole issue blows up. All the companies claim to offer top professional services: the two below have been around longer than most.

Seacoast Expeditions are located across the Inner Harbour at the Boardwalk Level, Oceane Pointe Resort, 45 Songhees Rd (tel 383-4383 or 1-800/386-1525, www.seacoastexpeditions.com ). It's ten-minutes' walk across the Johnson Street bridge or take the three-minute harbour ferry crossing to Seacoast: they also have a shuttle-bus pick-up from downtown hotels. Victoria's founding whale-watching company, they've been in the business over a decade and offer four three-hour trips daily in May, June and September, six daily in July and August, and one daily in April and October. They also offer a guaranteed sighting deal (May-Aug only) whereby you carry a pager that tells you to turn up at the office for a tour only when whales have been spotted.

Five Star Charters , located at 706 Douglas St (tel 386-3253 or 388-7223, www.5starwhale.com ), has in the past claimed the highest percentage of whale sightings out of all the tour operators (thanks to spotter boats and a good network of contacts). It runs six daily three-hour trips in the summer as well as an all-day trip on its spotter boat.