The second day of my Blues trip began at 6 am with my alarm clock chiming that happy tune. It seems that I only ever set my alarm for travel so the sound gives me a Pavlovian response of anticipation.
I made myself a coffee with ground beans from home and my portable Aeropress (a godlike device that comes with me on all my trips) then trudged up the hill to the base-station where I had a quick breakfast and observed the team gather the equipment and load it into the truck.
There was a tense oopsie moment where a case containing the camera's mega zoom lenses lost its contents because the latch had been left open. Our dear leader was NOT impressed and let his displeasure be known. I clung to the edge of the room as quiet as the loudly patterned wallpaper.
Thankfully, as soon as the equipment was tested and found to be unharmed the sombre mood lifted and we made our way back to the park to spot whales from shore. Not long after, a black she-bear and her two furry toddlers ambled across the road a few hundred metres ahead of us. We approached slowly in the pickup truck hoping to get some pictures.
Cowboy Sears opened the door and hopped right on out! What? Eep! This girl ain't becoming a Rosh Hashana appetizer for no dang bears! Bertrand and Florine sagely stayed with me because they didn't want to be an hors d'oeuvre either! However, it was obvious that Mr. Sears wasn't concerned for his safety. He has years of experience and knew the limits of what the animals would perceive as a "safe" distance so he respected that comfort zone.
We left the bears to hunt their berries and spent a sadly fruitless quarter of an hour trying to see some whales. Nothing doing in the bay. We spoke to some other binocular-laden hunters and they hadn't found any either. We packed up the tripod and the long lenses and left the park but not without another visit with mama bear and her cubs. This time, they were really out in the open with lots of room to spread out and escape into the forest, up a tree or across the road. I have to admit they were in good looking health and the cubs were just too cute. (All photo credits to Florine Martineau.) So, in these circumstances, I got out of the car too and I made it to tell the tale!
We decided to get out on the water anyway because the weather conditions were ideal, little wind, 15% cloud cover and reports of some finback whales in a very picturesque area near the gannet colony at Île Bonaventure and the famous Rocher Percé. Worst case scenario, we'd have some touristy post-card snaps.
It was a little hairy getting our rigid hulled inflatable boat out of the harbour at low tide but our beloved Captain Sears made it look effortless. Florine who is approximately the size of a spaghetti noodle kept checking me and asking if I had dressed warmly enough, were all my zippers and velcros done up, was my hood in place, did I need an extra scarf, were my mittens near?
Geez Louise, once you've been to Arctic Norway in November a little late-summer Gaspé wind ain't no thing!
It was fine and soon we had our reward for our hunch and I watched the team spring into action as we spotted some locals.
First we found some Minke whales which are the smallest of the baleen whales in this area. They are still pretty big and they don't make a big show of themselves like those "MOMMY, WATCH MEEEEE!!!!" humpbacks so I like them.
There was a gang of around six Atlantic white sided dolphins doing their antics with porpoising and tail flapping and giant synchronized leaps. They looked almost golden in the sunshine.
I heard commotion behind me and the engine slowed. They had seen a properly big spout. GO TIME!
Out came the cameras, out came the famous pencil and white cardboard slate, the time was noted and then for me it stopped and so did my heart.
I finally saw what they had seen. A chimney of water vapour emanating from the blow hole of a Fin Whale. And again, from its companion.
Now, Fin Whales (rorqual commun in French) or sometimes called Finbacks are smaller than Blue whales and bigger than Humpbacks. The column of waterspout was easily three times the height of any Humpback spout that I had ever observed and we were still a kilometre away from the animals.
We heard the exhalations clearly though and my guides knew what was about to happen...DIVE. With that the captain piloted the boat over to the now smooth patch of water recently occupied by the finbacks. This patch is known as the footprint of the whales. The GPS waypoint was noted, the digital camera photo series was noted and the time was recorded.
We had around 7 minutes until the whales would surface again and like clockwork, they did.
We repositioned to ensure the best angles for photo id captures and the crew took as many photos as possible until that deep breath signaled the next dive and we repeated the process.
When the whales would surface, we never really saw much more than their arched back and dorsal fins. This is typical for fin whales. They rarely fluke (show their tail) like humpbacks.
They were not engaging in any particular behaviour, they were just moving around. We continued in this way watching four to six Fin Whales and one lousy humpback that they had already ID'ed for about an hour.
Then as suddenly as they had appeared, they went poof.
We continued out to Île Bonaventure and saw a great colony of Gannet sea birds which have taken over the neighbourhood. They share the island with a bunch of seals of many varieties, all of whom are called "Ralph" according to Mr. Sears.
They were very curious and would pop their heads up out of the water like periscopes and peer at us until they got spooked and splashed back under to safety.
They gathered together like gossipy old biddies doing aquafitness at the YMCA as the noisy and stinky Gannets flocked above in the bleachers. (All photo credits to Florine Martineau)
Their underfloofie feathers showered us like a downy blizzard in the wind and yes, we did get pooped on rather a lot.
As a parrot owner, I'm used to that kind of thing and felt quite at home but Captain Sears grumbled at the "shithawks" hovering over our boat's canopy.
The team conferred and made the call that we had Blue Balls, a disappointing condition wherein no Balaenoptera musculus are to be found.
That concluded our first day of observation and all that was left to do was make our way home.
Easier said than done because of course, the wind had picked up and there was only so much daylight left as the sky clouded in the distance.
We bounced and dipped and splashed our way to safe harbour but I enjoyed every moment. Under the special care of Bertrand, Florine and Richard Sears, I couldn't have been in better hands.
