Discovering
Pleasant Bay, whale watching and hiking
Perfect
way to start a day, I had breakfast with a view on the ocean out
of one window and the mountains out of the other.
As
it was beautiful weather, we decided to go hiking.
There are a lot of trails all around the Cabot Trail and
we chose two rather short ones. The first one took us to
a small, but beautiful waterfall. With the sun shining through
the gaps between the trees, it was a really nice walk and
I liked the fact that the few people we met on the way all
greeted us.
The second one led us to a replica of an old Scottish hut,
passing by 400 year old trees.I was quite surprised
when I overheard people talking about blue whales close to the
bay. I mean, blue whales! There are less and less blue whales
in the world and a couple of them right here in this beautiful
little spot in Cape Breton? So, it was clear for me that I’d
take this unique opportunity and try to see them – as I
was planning to go on a whale watching tour anyway.
So, in the afternoon we were heading out onto the ocean with a
whale watching tour boat. The boat ride itself was really exciting,
but it turned out to be nothing compared to what would follow.
I heard someone say “There she blows!”, turned around
and saw it: the blow of water and then the whale itself –
or actually just a relatively small part of its back –,
shortly coming up to the surface before it disappeared in the
water.
As the captain said, there is no way to know which direction it
might go to. This means waiting, looking around until someone
finally views it after a while. And then you really had to hold
on to the handles, since the boat zoomed close to where the whale
was swimming and blowing out water. It was just amazing, unbelievable;
it is hard to find proper words to describe what we were experience
right then. It is simply stunning how big this animal is, considering
that we only could see a part of its back.
After
it disappeared in the ocean again, we waited for it to come
back up and actually saw two of them right besides each
other. We did this a couple of times, every single time
as impressed as the very first one. Eventually, both whales
were so close to the boat that it felt like you could almost
touch them. Unfortunately, it was time to head back then.
The time really flew by quickly, but the whole day was really
spectacular and impressive.
