Wednesday,
August 1st 2001
Wale watching on the St. Lawrence River
Today we got up early to be in time in St. Catherine Bay, 70km north to board for the wale watching... To be honest, we expected very little from this trip. We reminded our selves to our "disaster" in Greece, where we were "promised" to see the seaturtles and dolphins. Well, we spent 8 hours on the boat and saw neither of them. So this time we had set our expectations very low. Arriving at the ticket office / check in, we already had our first disappointment: "Sorry you are not on the reservation list".... Just imagine, I had made 2 phonecalls to make the reservation. Again few phonecalls later and some hot discussions we were admitted just 5 minutes before the boat departed.....
We made the choice for the so called Zodiac boat, a very fast small boat, much closer to the water and wales than from one of the cruise type of fessels. As we were going to spend 3 hours on the water, the rainsuits were not only to protect from the water, but also to keep the chill out.
At high speed, we were brought to a known spot where wales were expected to hang out. Within 10 minutes we had our first encounter!! Very exciting, not only once, but again and again, the wales were popping up next to our boat !! It was hard to catch them with the camera, before you could aim at one, he or she was gone already. Specially when they were very close to the boat. You really needed to wait a few moments where you expected one to appear. This proved to be successful and so I was able to make many nice pictures.
The only silly thing was, that the captains stayed in radio contact with each other; as soon as one spotted a group of wales, they tipped each other. Immediately from all sides the other cruise boats and zodiacs came speeding to that location than.
Not particularity a quiet meal for the wales I contemplated, but they didn't seemed to be disturbed in any way. But still, at some point we felt a little bit embarrassed, when all the boats were "chasing" a group of wales at high speed with roaring motors .......
Anyway, the weather was beautiful, we had a great time, made many many pictures and experienced exciting moments. When we came back to the harbor, some one was leaving for wale watching de luxe....... with the helicopter, what's next? a visit to Marine Land may be.....
After a successful and satisfying morning we enjoyed the journey back again with (again, I cannot stop talking about it, Sorry) great views through a beautiful landscape !
Tomorrow will be a boring day (except for the landscape ofcourse....); we will drive back south to Kingston for our last stop before we go back to Frankfurt. A long ride, I expect it to be roughly 800km, so it will take all day.