Twas an early Saturday morning during the month of July when I rose before the sun to voyage to the far away and almost forgotten village of Tadoussac. A quaint town known for its whale appreciation and hidden coves, Tadoussac lies at the crossroads of two bodies of water in the province of Quebec. The St. Lawrence and Saguenay Rivers combine there and the mélange of salt and fresh water provides the occasional wave pool that whales particularly enjoy.
In reality, Tadoussac is not a forgotten village. It is fairly small but it was worth the 3 hour shuttle ride to get there. (When I say shuttle, I do indeed mean one like the Creighton shuttle. For an account of my adventures with the CU shuttle, please see my other published works) The trip to Tadoussac was particularly enjoyable because we got to take a ferry across the river!
Random cars on the ferry. The people were probably wondering why I was so excited...
We had lunch on the beach then suited up for our day on the water. Although it was a very comfortable 65 degrees on land with the wind and the water temperature, it was much cooler. Looking like sumo wrestlers, we were finally ready to embark on our Zodiacs.
Me, Xu, Suzanne and Brittany ready to wrestle/whale watch
Our Zodiac fit 25 people including the captain. We had the best boat not only because Francois (the captain) was a total badass but also because our seats faced outwards from the center to optimize our viewing and all the other boats faced inwards... we rule. Within 10 minutes we came across our first whales!! There was a group of belugas playing in the waves a little ways off the coast.
The white shape peeking out of the wave is a beluga!
I'm not sure why but I was expecting to get National Geographic caliber pictures of the whales... as the previous picture suggests though, I wasn't quite that lucky. We were able to get pretty close because our boat was fairly small but because the tour was for observation, we didn't want to disturb the whales, just observe them. I won't give you a play-by-play of my three hours on the water because I lot of it was just us cruising around lookin for the whales but here are some of my better moments that day:
Whale jumpin out of the water!
Artsy picture of a buoy, the shore, the water and the skyyy
Speaking of the sky. I would like to take a moment to mention that when I wasn't scanning the water for any sign of whale activity, my head was literally in the clouds admiring what I have to say was one of the best cloud days of my life. Several pictures to follow will provide evidence to back this lofty statement up. (For the full collection, please visit my facebook page or arrange an appointment to meet me and discuss my portfolio.)
WHALE TAIL! My best picture of the day. This was a humpback whale I believe. We saw belugas, humpbacks and one other kind that I cannot remember the name of because it was French and confusing... Also saw some mini-whales that are cousins to the dolphin!!
Best of both worlds: jumping whale and unbelievable clouds
Couldn't ask for much more.
Around the last hour of our venture aboard the Zodiac we found ourselves in the middle of a pack of seals! It was really cool to see them swimming on both sides of us and to be that close to them! They were bigger than I realized they would be... Francois kept saying 'look at the seals' because in French it's "Voici les phoques" (pronounced just like our popular curse word...) and he said the English speakers always like learning that word. To finish up our day, we jetted over to the fjord and saw a beautiful mini waterfall and got to admire the landscape before returning to land.
This was such a fun day and I'm so happy I took the opportunity to go. Whale-watching was my most anticipated activity for my time here in Quebec and it definitely did not disappoint!
Another update to come soon!
p.s. When I mentioned some of my pictures didn't turn out, I wasn't kidding... here is a picture that was supposed to be of a whale (naturally) but instead features a bird of some sort. I think I must have gotten so excited to take the picture that I threw my hands in the air at the same time as I took the picture...
Look out National Geographic photographers...
