Whale Watching - A Lesson on Conquering Fears

Hi everyone!

Well - we did it!!! We're back from our mini vacation to St. Andrews, New Brunswick and can officially check 'whale watching' off of our bucket list!!

Despite the horrible weather and the VERY long drive (11 hours there and 11 hours back!!), the trip, as a whole, was fabulous! St. Andrews is such a cute, quaint town right on the beautiful Bay of Fundy. We stayed at an amazing bed and breakfast which we would HIGHLY recommend - the Montague Rose B&B. Joe and Rose-Anne are wonderful hosts and are definitely fabulous cooks! The breakfast was truly one of a kind and we enjoyed relaxing in the morning chatting with the other guests. Their home, built in 1859, is incredible!

 

There's so much history in St. Andrews and we had fun just walking around looking at all the old, well-kept homes. It's neat to imagine what life would have been like in this town more than 100 years ago! It was nice to shop along the main street, walk along the beautiful coastline, and enjoy a cup of tea at the local Honeybeans coffee shop! We were also super happy that our grandparents from Moncton met us for lunch one day at the famous Kingsbrae Gardens! All in all, we packed a lot into our short trip to St. Andrews, but there's still more we wish we could have done!

But...now for the main reason for our trip - WHALE WATCHING! St. Andrews is famous for it's whale watching and there are several companies that operate in the town. We chose Fundy Tide Runners as it had been featured on the Rick Mercer Report - so, we figured it must be good!!

 

 

 



Our boat

Before leaving, we put on these massive fluorescent orange safety floatation suits and headed out to the boat. The boat was actually quite small - for someone who was really scared to go whale watching, this boat was a little small for my liking, but there was no turning back at this point!! There were 12 passengers along with Captain Dave. Since my Dad's name is Dave, I figured I should be able to trust him! We lucked out and got to sit in the only two seats at the very front of the boat (I say lucked out now, but at the time I wasn't so sure).

As we sped off further and further into open water, the nerves really set in - whales could be anywhere around us!! ahhh.... Our Captain said that we would see Minke whales which are a smaller species, and hoped that we would catch a sighting of a Finback, the second largest whale after the blue whale. We eventually slowed down and started keeping our eyes peeled for whale sightings. What happens next, I will never forget. Right in front of us, maybe 50 feet, a FINBACK WHALE RISES TO THE SURFACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed and grabbed Laura, this was quite the introduction to our whale watching adventure! We continued to spot the finback throughout the rest of the journey. It was actually very neat to see it come to the surface to breathe - you could really hear the blow and see the spout of water. Our Captain said he believes the whale was about 50 feet long and weighed about 50 tonnes! MASSIVE!
 

Finback rising to the surface

In a distance - clear sighting of the 'fin back'

Going to lunge feed - turning on it's side

Side of it's tail as it dives back into the water

  

The other whale we got to see was the Minke, which looked kind of like a dolphin as it is quite small. There were quite a few Minkes out on the water and they were easier to spot as they rise to the surface much more frequently than the Finback. We also saw a lot of bald eagles and a ton of seals - it was definitely an aquatic wildlife adventure. 

Beautiful out on the water - you can see the incoming storm

Bald eagle flying away

 

Even though our trip was cut short by a few minutes because of an incoming storm (we never escaped the rain the entire weekend!), we saw so much!! Thank you, Fundy Tide Runners for such a memorable evening! It was truly incredible and although I can't say that I no longer have a fear of whales, I am definitely happy that I pushed myself to do this!! It was really an awesome experience, a real sight to see, and something everyone should try! If I can do it, you can too!

A rainbow after our adventure
 

 All in all, an absolutely awesome mini-holiday! We can't say enough about our wonderful hospitality, the charm of St. Andrews, the excitement of whale watching, and the beauty of the Bay of Fundy.

Here's to challenging yourself and conquering fears!!

Melissa and Laura

**The photos are ok, but since you can't predict when the whale will surface, it's hard to get the 'perfect' shot. It's more about the experience than capturing the Kodak moment!