July 29  Pilot Whales

    Staying in Wood Island right next to the ferry terminals sounded like a good idea until the ferries came in for the night and left their lights on and their generators running all night.  We were up at dawn to untie and leave before they made the first run at 6:30 am.  Already cars were lined up, waiting to board.  It was good to leave that behind.

     The weather was overcast, the low clouds heavy and threatening, but the winds were light and the sea was calm and we made our way toward Ballantynes Cove just around Point George.  The guidebook described it as a great place to anchor if you like “neat places.”  Since the winds were supposed to pick up strongly from the SW, we thought this would be a good place to tuck into.  But the forecast didn’t seem to materialize as predicted (people here don’t even listen to them anymore) and the thunderstorms and flukey winds sent us on across St. Georges Bay to Havre Boucher (pronounced Harve Bushy) where we would be protected from any wind.  

     Dan was giving me a mini radar lesson, pointing out storm cells on the radar screen, and we observed some lightning strikes, when he called out.  “Look!  Porpoise!  LOTS of them!”  We fought over the binoculars and marveled at the sea animals rolling through the water.  They were too big to be porpoise, but not really big enough to be minke or finback whales, though they had a distinctive fin.  And we saw flukes.  I grabbed the camera, Dan took the helm back from Ziggy the autopilot, and we headed toward them.  

    We’d never seen pilot whales before.  They are small with bulbous heads, gregarious, and traveling in large groups.  Like minkes and finbacks, they have a large dorsal fin.  Like humpbacks, they show their flukes when they dive.  We idled for about an hour as they rolled around and past us.  We saw several mamas with their babies.  Don’t worry, we didn’t get that close to them - I have a telephoto lens, and this particular picture is blown up.  In this image notice that the Mama is in the foreground and to the right of center the baby is surfacing. You can see the baby's eye, blow-hole and fin.

    We spent a quiet night in Havre Boucher, and were even treated to a sunset!