Quebec 2012 Part 2 - Tadoussac

We left Quebec City Weds. the 22 and traveled the 3 hours up and down some fairly significant mountiany bits to Tadoussac. This little town is located at the junction of the St. Lawrence Estuary and the Saguenay Fjord, in a beautiful bay. The unique junction of these 2 bodies of water stirs up huge amounts of little sea creatures and that, combined with a really deep trench that runs through the area, attracts an amazing variety of marine mammals. Which means - WHALES!

Now, we have whales here in Massachusetts - Humpbacks especially but in Tadoussac, they have those and more! Including the southernmost colony of belugas and for a few weeks in August/September - Blue Whales. 

All in all, we saw minkes, 3 fin whales swimming in a pod, a couple of humpbacks (Blizzard and Perseus), lots of harbour porpoise (usually in pairs), grey seals, a whole mess of belugas and several blue whales.

We took a couple of 12 person Zodiac trips and a couple of kayaking trips. Happily, the biggest whale seen by kayak was a minke which is pretty small!!
Highlights: several blue whales, one almost close enough to touch! - breaching minke (from the Zodiac, not kayak!) - on kayak, being surrounded, literally, by harbour porpoises and minkes surfacing. You could hear their breath sounds all around - beluga beach, a hike into a beach area where we saw about 50 belugas frolicking around and actually heard them whistle and click - Kayaking at midnight with a huge sky of stars. Every dip of the paddle stirred up bioluminescence so the water looked full of stars too. With the help of a hydrophone, we heard belugas and harbour porpoises singing underwater.

 Fin whale  - our Zodiac boat is black and actually a bit smaller!

 

 

Blue Whale - there is no zoom used on these photos!!

 

We didn't take very many photos during the Tadoussac portion of the trip. The boats and kayaks were bumpy and awkward (and often very splashy!) and our whale pictures never seem to capture the truly awesome experience of being with these creatures. I have to say, Aoife took all of these photos and she did much better than I usually do. I normally have a whole mess of ocean pictures where a whale just was......

 

 



Aoife, self portrait - Alan and Brendan behind her - on a zodiac boat

Brendan and a beluga sculpture

 

Happily, no child was eaten by whales....

It was pretty hard to come back to Northampton...