A Whale of a Trip!

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Neil M
Posts: 285
Joined: April 10th, 2012, 7:27 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA

A Whale of a Trip!

Post by Neil M »

Earlier this month I went up to Montreal, Canada to see the Formula 1 Grand Prix. If anyone is interested in car racing, just say so and I can post photos from the race. Afterwards I headed north with my family to Tadoussac in hopes of seeing whales and we were not disappointed! While it was too early in the season to see Blue and Fin whales, we still had close encounters with three different species.

First trip to see whales was on a Zodiak, which are fast small boats that can get relatively close to the animals.

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First up were Minke Whales, which were so common that we saw them from our hotel window!

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(note the Kayaker on the left. We did it too, keep reading)

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Next up was a lone Humpback Whale that while we could get close, he wasn't too into frolicking and breaching. :(

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The third type of whale we saw and my personal goal for the trip was the Beluga! We actually saw them on multiple occasions, from shore, zodiak and kayak! The funny thing is that you have a better chance at seeing them close from the shore and kayak rather than the zodiak. There is a minimum distance that the boats need to stay from this threatened species, unless the belugas choose to come close, but they weren't too interested in us on the zodiak. Here are a couple crappy shots taken from shore.

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Sadly I don't have photos of this next part because I didn't want to take my camera out in the rain and on a kayak. But this was the highlight of the trip and I greatly recommend a kayak tour to see the whales. We took a three hour tour and before even getting in our kayaks we were seeing Minke Whales off shore. Soon we saw a couple of belugas and there was never a dull moment. We actually had to choose at certain times what whale to look at, Minke or Beluga. We had two extremely close encounters with Belugas, where they came within 10 feet of our kayak and I was speechless! They may be the smallest whale, but when they get close and you can see the detail on their backs, they look pretty large. Then the shock of a lifetime came when a Minke, out of nowhere, surfaced 5 feet from our kayak!!! He was 20-30 feet long! It surprised me so much, I nearly flipped the kayak :lol:

It was a great tour and if you ever consider one, please do not be discouraged by fowl weather. We woke up early for this morning tour and it was pouring and never really let up. However this is an advantage. When it is sunny, the Krill swim deep so the whales are feeding under the water out of sight. But when it is overcast, the Krill come to the surface and so do the whales!

While driving through Canada I hoped to see another mammal, the porcupine. I have only seen one ever. While we did see two in Canada, both were DOR.

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Oh and here is the only herp of the trip :(

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Thanks for reading and I will end this post with a couple landscape shots I took

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All images: © Neil Moore 2012
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Nir
Posts: 220
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 6:50 pm
Location: Gatineau, QC, Canada

Re: A Whale of a Trip!

Post by Nir »

Great post! I've been to Tadoussac many times and it is a very fun and beautiful place! It's rare I see photos from Québec that are not from me on the forum... :P
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pete
Posts: 745
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:11 pm
Location: cape cod ma.

Re: A Whale of a Trip!

Post by pete »

Great post!!

now i have another "must do"!!! :lol:
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Curtis Hart
Posts: 595
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 5:07 pm
Location: Hillsdale County, Michigan

Re: A Whale of a Trip!

Post by Curtis Hart »

Seeing this makes me want to get out and see some whales. Those Belugas are impressive.



Curtis
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