Wednesday August 2, 2017

She is a Saint

We take a lazy morning today, sleeping in all the way to 0800. We make coffee and heat our blueberry muffins on the baseboard heater. Yes, it was cold enough last night and this morning for us to turn on the heat. Works out great for warming our blueberry muffins. By the time we finish eating, showering, and packing it is 1000. We go out to explore some coves and the area before our 1 o’clock whale watching tour. The iceberg we saw last night is not where it was having moved to the opposite end of the cove and we can’t get as close to it. We drive toward the town of St. Anthony and turn off a side road that says St Anthony Bight. This takes us up a peninsula across from the town of St Anthony. While driving to the Bight, we see a sign for St Carols, so of course, we have to check it out. Another tiny community on the water.

Goose Cove

Now we drive into St Anthony itself but turn off where we see a sign pointing to Goose Cove. We drive about 6 miles to another picture perfect cove and wind our way through the small community. At the end of town there is a trail and a boardwalk going out to the point so we brave the chill and walk there. It is beautiful here, we just wish the weather was a little bit better. Today is another cloudy day with a fairly good breeze. Not what we wanted for our whale watching tour.

Our Tour Boat

We find our way back to town and after missing the turn for the boat, we find it and park. I go in to pay and Carol makes us lunch. We are still eating wraps with veggies, a chipotle mayo, cheese, and turkey or chicken. Before we know it, we are boarding. Carol finds a seat inside the cabin and I sit outside in the back. Once we leave the shelter of the cove, the waves are really rolling. I feel a bit exposed watching the 10-15 foot waves bob us up and down. They are gentle swells according to the crew but they are definitely good size swells.

Humpback

After a bit of rocking and rolling, the first whale spout is seen and we head towards it. We catch glimpses of the whale but the waves cresting and subsiding hurts the prolonged viewing. We do catch one tail breaking the surface as the whale makes its terminal dive. They feed along the surface and then after a while they dive which is usually when the tail comes out of the water. From that point they stay submerged for 8 to 10 minutes before coming back up. Why do they do this? Because they can. If you could hold your breath for 10 minutes or more, wouldn’t you dive down and take a look around?

Fins to the Left

We see quite a few whales and the Captain gets word that there are some whales closer to the cove, cruising the cliffs so we head there to hopefully calmer waters. The swells lessen and we see a whale spout and head towards it. Then all of a sudden, nothing, the whale has doubled back on us and turned around. We turn around and continue our pursuit. We get near two whales and get some pretty good views of them. With the clouds, it is harder to see their whole silhouettes under the surface of the water. We are however much closer to these whales and can follow them pretty well as they do their eating run. We spot some more whales and they turn and head towards the boat. These two get very close, we can see the white fins below the surface which appear greenish due to refraction of the light. In a short while some dolphins come to get in on the action and show off a little. A man on the top deck drops his cellphone into the sea trying to make a whale call. As the mate talks about the cell phone, a whale breaches. It is really cool. A breach is when the whale propels its whole body out of the water. Why, no one really knows, perhaps they just like to show off. We are thrilled to have seen it.

CNC Whale Hunters

With the sea conditions it was hard to get photos and also I wanted to see the whales and trying to photography them, you can miss the visual experience. Most of my shots were just from holding the camera up and shooting when I saw a whale. I did manage to get a video of a tail before a dive. Considering the less than ideal conditions, we are both happy with the experience. After departing the boat we drive back towards Hay Cove, our residence for the night. We are staying at Jennys Runestone BNB which was our first choice in the area but only had one night available so that is why we stayed elsewhere last night.

View From BNB

We stop at the Daily Catch a restaurant that we want to try tonight. The sign says live music tonight so Carol goes in to ask when the music is. They end up giving us a reservation for 6:30, about two and a half hours from now. In another 10 minutes we pull into the BNB. Jenny comes out to greet us and shows us our room and then the rest of the public areas in the house. We sit and start talking and her husband David comes to join us. The conversation flows smoothly and is interesting but before we know it, we have been talking for 2 hours. We tell them we have reservations at the Daily Catch and ask if they want to join us. They accept and 15 minutes later we are in their car driving to the restaurant. The musician is a local and sings a mix of rock from the 60s and 70s along with some local and Canadian folk type songs. We enjoy a mix of music, more good conversation and a nice meal. After dinner, they drive us to see some local sights, a dark tickle, and to try and find some moose to show us. We learn that a tickle is a narrow stream separating an island from the mainland but is salt water and subject to the tides. We also do not see any moose so we are still 0 for 11 days in the moose department. We get back to the BNB and the other guests Andrew and Susan arrive and say they just saw 3 big moose right where we were 5 minutes ago. Our timing is obviously off. Andrew and Susan are from England and we share stories about our day and our lives. We do not get into our room until 10:45 a very full day and a very satisfying one. Jenny had promised us that if we didn’t see a moose, that we would dream of moose tonight and when we turn our covers there are moose on them so she was right. Sleep should come easy now.

Expenses                                                                                                                                Northern Discovery Whale Watching Tour 140 CAD                                                            Gas 53 CAD (about 5.20 a gallon here)                                                                               Dinner at the Daily Catch 93 CAD                                                                                     Jennys Runestone BNB 100 CAD                                                                                                 1 Mile Walked