Sunday 29 August 1999

My first ever encounters with whales!!

This morning dawned foggy and with only 3 days of whale-watching left, the tension mounted a little as we started to wonder whether we would ever get to out to sea.
However they have a saying here (and I’m sure in many other coastal parts of the world too) “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute”. The fog did eventually lift and we set out on our first whale-watch on board a temporarily-converted lobster-fishing boat (for part of the year when the right whales are around, the lobster fishery has to close down to protect these endangered animals from entanglement, so the more enterprising boat owners scrub up their boats, fit seats and a canopy and take out whale-watchers).
The sea was rough and some people were seasick, but we saw whales! My first sighting was a northern right whale breaching in the distance, but soon we got closer encounters.
Photos of these strange whales can make them look like barnacle-encrusted rocks (their heads are indeed ‘decorated’ with barnacles), but when they dive and lift their tail flukes into the air, they’re more photogenic.