MICS-Blue Whale study trip-September 12th 2018

At around 11 am the gigantic pickup truck pulled up in front of the motel loaded to the hilt with gear. Gear in the backseat, gear in the consoles, gear on the dashboard, gear UNDER the seat, gear piled high and lashed down in the cargo area. A huge pole was among the many weird and wonderful contents.

I paid my respect to the pole. This pole is the kindest and most important pole in the history of the world. This is the pole that gets attached to a knife. This is the pole sometimes attached to a knife which is used to free whales entangled in fishing equipment. Much respect to the pole.

So with all of this stuff, I was curious where my duffel bag would go but Bertrand managed to zip-tie it to the grill protecting the rear window. Voilà! All we needed was a grandma sitting in a rocking chair up top and we'd be off to Beverly....Hills that is. Well, we were off to Rimouski in a convoy.

We had a tailgate picnic on the property where the boat was parked. That's when I saw the GIANT WHEEL OF CHEESE. Well of course these 2.5 Frenchmen would have one, it's part of their body composition. I mean humans are like 97% water, right? If you're French, there is only 94% water and the remaining 3% is clearly cheese. This cheese was reallllllly good on nice bread with little tomatoes and arugula and some ham and proper strong mustard. It was extra good eaten outside overlooking Pointe-à-la-Renommée.

Richard Sears met up with us in his car which was equally loaded with his guitars and his bike and some molasses cake, his only sustenance because we had prematurely stowed the cheese...oops.

Once the boat was hitched up to the truck we set out on what would normally be a 5 hour drive to Rimouski. Of course it wasn't. We stopped to spot at all rest points overlooking the sea. If there were any whales sighted we would have pulled into the closest marina and launched the boat. At one point Bertrand just stopped and waited for Richard as we had agreed but we didn't see Richard. We doubled back and looked at some other places thinking that there was a miscommunication but nope. That took almost an hour out of our trip because oh dear...no cellphone in the other vehicle. WHAT? I think that problem will be remedied next year if I have to donate one MYSELF!

Anyway, we lost another 15 minutes in an area under construction where traffic was controlled on a single lane one direction at a time. Our only true "rest" stop was to fill up with gas, get a coffee and have a pee. The trip is actually quite beautiful and I would have been hard pressed to find a private chauffeur-driven tour any other way. We even spotted some dolphins at sunset and a few blows from Minkes in an area called Cap-Chat.

Bertrand valiantly scooted us down river to Rimouski where we met up with a beloved collaborator named René Roy. What a sweet guy! He is a true whale lover just like me and has worked with MICS for many years by spotting, photographing, IDing and even helping to develop software to catalogue the whales. He is a traveler too and we got to exchange lots of stories on the next day. I'm looking forward to reuniting with René and his wife on some future trip. After letting us unload some extra gear into his shed, he helped us launch the boat at the local marina which was conveniently located across the street from our hotel.

By the time we got to Hôtels Gouverneur Rimouski, it was pretty late but we still needed to unload all the perishables from the truck. We even had delicate samples that needed to be kept in the freezer so we had to sort that out!

It had been a tiring day but everyone was famished so we went to Restaurant Pacini for some pizza and pasta and enjoyed the bread bar! Florine and Bertrand and Richard are made of pure energy and passion. I was so tired and I had just sat in a truck all day. They are amazing people.