🎶 Baby Beluga 🎶

The morning was spent driving to Tadoussac so we could let my new friends enjoy the wild ride on a zodiac boat to see whales.  We left early enough so that if there was construction, we’d still have lots of time to get to our boat tour on time.  The drive was uneventful so we got here early.  Guess what they did?  I bet you can’t guess?  Oh… I bet you can.  Yup, they went shopping.

I chose not to join them on the boat this year as I still have solid memories of just how wet I got last year (and them wringing me out and then using a hair dryer on me).  Turns out I could have gone.  They barely got wet at all.  *sigh*  All I can do now is report on what they told me, and share their photos.  As much as I’d like to pout and blame Clare, it was my choice so I’ll just deal.  What was not my choice however, was being left in the van AFTER their boating adventure, when they went for dinner at a restaurant who sources all their food locally, and had some very different things to try (not that I would know).

So, back to the boat… 

The staff who took the group photo said “I’ll stick you all between the cars as traffic cones” and that is why they are all laughing in the picture.  As for the boat trip itself, I’ve been told it was also very different from last year, besides the obvious not-getting-wet part.  The first thing they saw, after barely leaving the marina, were two pods of beluga whales.   The first was a pod of males, all bouncing along the surface.  Not long after they saw a pod of females with babies, which launched Robin into singing “Baby Beluga” (a children’s song by Raffi, and now insists I include a link for you all - whose blog is this exactly?)  https://youtu.be/mIBY-LQYkVA?feature=shared

They continued on further up the St. Lawrence River, but no whales to be seen (where we saw the humpback whales last year).  Instead they turned around and went up the Saguenay River into the fjord, where they saw minke whales up close, and then later harbour seals.  And finally, as they were rounding the point back into the marina, they saw a bunch of grey seals.  Pretty good haul of wild animal sightings if you ask me!

I’ve already bemoaned the fact that I missed dinner, but apparently it was very good.  

Whatever!