A shape emerges under the murky green waters as a whale slowly glides, oblivious to the gasps of awe and camera clicks above it. Soon it is joined by another and the sound of shutter clicks resonate in the still, calm air. This was the special moment a group of  lucky sightseers encountered the massive humpback whales of Canada. Once in a lifetime: The whale sighting was a 'spiritual occasion' for sightseers on a whale watching excursion. Unaware of the fuss surrounding their appearance, the whales continue to swim calmly. Furiously taking photographs, the tourists are mesmerised by the graceful movements of the cetaceans as they approach the boat. The pair of friendly humpback whales seem to have no fear of the boatload of watchers and swim ever closer to the vessel. Gasps of awe are heard as they  experience the rare moment. Doug Davis, the owner of Prince Rupert Adventure Tours who organised the whale watching, spoke to CTV News Vancouver about the experience. 'People on the boat had never seen a whale before and all of a sudden you have these whales going right up to the boat,' Mr Davis said of the encounter. Up close and personal: Many of the tourists had not seen a whale before, let alone this close up. More videos of the encounter have since emerged on YouTube, uploaded by the sightseers on the tour. The whales were spotted off the British Columbia coast near Prince Rupert in Canada. 'It's a bit of a spiritual occasion. It puts us in our place a little bit.' According to Mr Davis, the whales behaved rather unusually, swimming around the vessel for the next few hours. He told the Canadian news agency that the group spotted a large pod of at least ten transient killer whales  in the distance. Mr Davis believed the humpbacks were intentionally avoiding the orcas. 'If you look at the end of the video, I took the ID's of the whales,' he said. 'You can actually see the bottom edge of one of the tail flukes had teeth marks on it. 'Obviously this whale had an experience with killer whales before.' Mr Davis said this experience was among one of his best whale watching tours. 'You see this kind of stuff once in a while, not very often,' he said. 'To actually experience it – everybody was just totally in awe.' More videos of the encounter have since emerged on YouTube, uploaded by the sightseers on the tour. 'Fantastic weather. Great number of whales. Couldn't ask for a better way to spend a Saturday!' Eric Bombardier posted  on YouTube. And tourist, Melanie Hooker, who was also on the boat that day posted a video on YouTube. 'Humpback whales "playing" around our whale watching vessel for about 45 minutes. Getting up close and personal,' she wrote.
Summarize the highlights of this article.
The whales were spotted off the British Columbia coast near Prince Rupert. Unusually for them, the mammals swam around the vessel for a few hours. Doug Davis from the tour agency said 'everybody was just totally in awe'