A Whale of A Time

Hello to everyone visiting from Kelly's Korner in March 2013. We went to St. Andrew's, New Brunswick for my cousin's wedding in August 2012. We had an excellent time and are already planning a longer Eastern Canada trip. You can also read about an amazing garden we visited here. Thanks for stopping by.

Today we did something that was out of this world. We went on a whale watching tour in the Bay of Fundy. The particular tour we did was with a tall ship and it was amazing, so sit back and enjoy our day in pictures. And be warned, there are A LOT of them!

We woke up and got to the wharf. It was very foggy this morning and I wondered if we would be able to see anything, let alone whales! Then we had to walk down the gangplank to where we could board the ship. The gangplank (as I call it) was very steep, and me being me, I didn't notice the stairs on the right hand side until we were walking back up this afternoon. Oops :) We were running a little late this morning so I could only get a picture when we got back.

And then we saw our ship -- The Jolly Breeze.


Once we were on board we headed out to sea. Although we literally couldn't see much as it was foggy. Had I mentioned that already?!?!

The first order of business was breakfast -- fresh fruit, bagels, homemade bread and coffee and hot chocolate. It was C-O-L-D out on the water, especially with the damp fog. Fortunately The Jolly Breeze came equipped with fleece blankets for its passengers.

The first wildlife we saw, besides seagulls, was an island full of harbour seals. They were very cool and a few even went swimming in the water for us.

Then we decided it was time for some fun pictures! First Rachel found her sea legs (ha ha ha!), and I was smiling despite the chill in the air. (Which I should clarify, I wasn't complaining about. It felt sooooo good after all the heat and humidity we've been dealing with this summer.)

Next, we have yet another family picture in which Sam did NOT want to cooperate AT ALL. Boo hiss.

Then we had to take a break because we saw some porpoises frolicking around. We must have watched them for about twenty minutes and it was so cool. I think we saw 10-15 different ones. This next picture is just gratuitous because it doesn't show the porpoises at all. I was too excited to get pictures and racing with Sam from one side of the ship to the other to show him.

THEN we saw a whale. It must have surfaced about fifteen times in twenty (or so) minutes. It was a minke whale. And it was so cool to watch. Dave wanted me to try and get pictures and the black speck in the foreground on the left of each picture is about the best I could do.

After we saw the whale there was face painting for the kids...

...helping to hoist the sail for kids and grownups alike...

... and a touch tank with starfish we could hold. That was almost the coolest thing ever! I was super-excited about it.



Even Rachel reached out to touch this strange creature! And then the kids got to sail the boat which was awesome, even if their wheel didn't do much (anything!) to affect the actual course of the ship.

Then there was a bit of time for more fun boat pictures, including my bad re-enactment of the "king of the world" scene from Titanic without actually being able to go on the prow! Ha ha ha!


And some nice person took an awesome picture of me and Dave, if I do say so myself. I love this picture of us!

And as we approached the dock we could see much more clearly than we could in the morning, including a bunch of tall ships docked in the harbour. What a beautiful sight.

It was a totally fun and amazing morning and we all had a great time. And the fun wasn't even over for the day yet! Stay tuned tomorrow for a recap of the delicious, fun lobster feast we enjoyed tonight.