MICS-Blue Whale study trip-September 11th 2018

For days we had known that Tuesday, September 11th would be appropriately rainy, overcast and grim.

The researchers said "have a little sleep-in and a late breakfast then meet up with us around 10 am."

I enjoyed a lovely country-style breakfast while looking out over the bay. Although it was cloudy, it hadn't started to rain yet so it was possible to see right to the horizon. If any whales were passing by, they would be easy to see but they didn't choose that moment to appear.

Bertrand greeted me and we drove a short distance to a place called Penouille.



This is a part of the Forillon National park where you can visit the salt marshes using well-maintained boardwalks with informative panels describing the flora and fauna of the area.

At this time of year, at the end of the season there were not many people using the trails and there were definitely no mosquitoes so Bertrand and I had a nice long walk quietly enjoying the surroundings. We saw many kinds of birds including Great Blue Heron, Canada geese, ducks and woodland birds too. Red squirrels chased each other across our path.

I remarked to Bertrand that it must be tough to be away from his family for the whole season. He said yes, but he loves the work very much. These guys literally work every waking minute. If they aren't in the field, they are preparing meals, doing bookkeeping, making reservation enquiries, loading, unloading, repairing, reminding, planning, pulling, pushing, uploading, downloading, forecasting and if there's time they might take a pee break.

This doesn't include the actual prime directive of record keeping and analysis of the data collected. Oof. I couldn't do it with the calm and panache that Bertrand manages. He never seems to break a sweat or get nervous. He just handles everything and keeps the team organized.

Anyway, I loved the time we spent in Penouille walking along the beach, looking at mushrooms and lichen and enjoying nature with a true nature-lover.

After taking the tourist out for a walk, the MICS team had to get down to serious business. They needed to get to where the whales were and they weren't in Gaspé.

Since I lived close by, I was open to changing my plans. It wasn't like it would be risking missing a flight home to Europe. If everything went tits up, I could just rent a car and drive home if need be. I cancelled my flight home and left the rest up to the fates just like an honest to goodness field researcher!

While the princess napped, the hard-working researchers prepared their mobile unit to bug-out. They packed up their gadgets and doodads and thingamabobs and Florine's much maligned Couscous à la mouche (it's really just raisins but Mr. Sears says they look like dead flies!)

As soon as the tide was high enough, we drove to our boat at the Marina at l'Anse-au-Griffon. Bertrand drove ahead with the trailer attached to the pickup while Mr. Sears skippered Florine and I as far as weather and daylight permitted up the coast aboard the RHIB.

We stayed close to land because it was a bit bouncy out. I got baptized by the ocean spray just in front of a church known as Sainte-Marie-de-la-Baleine by our researchers because it's usually a good place to spot whales.

We had a nice little private sunset cruise and radioed Bertrand to meet us at l'Anse-à-Valleau Marina.


It was perfect timing. The rain pelted us mercilessly just as we approached the harbour but kindly stopped when the team piloted the boat up the launch onto the trailer. I looked at the sea from the nice little picnic area furnished with wooden swinging benches hung up on chains and read the info panels about how U-Boats came here during World War II and how this was an important area for Marconi's work on Maritime Radio Communications.

http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/media-5128/5128_phare_pointe_renommee_21.jpg

A kind "friend of the whales" let us park the boat on his property overnight and the four of us squeezed into the pickup truck for a rainy drive back to Cap-aux-Os or in English: Cape of Bones named for the great numbers of bones left on the beach from the whaling industry.

The mood was really fun. We laughed and joked as Richard Sears picked our brains trying to find a good name for his new boat. "Florine wouldn't be bad..." was the first suggestion from someone who will remain anonymous.

He wanted the name to include "blues" because he's a music fan as well as a whale maniac. One of my suggestions was "Blue Gene Blues" which I thought was clever but there were some other less good ones so there was lots of teasing. It was a nice way to bond.

They dropped me off at the restaurant for dinner and let me know they would pass by in the morning to get me after they finished settling their tabs and packing up the truck.