A whale we saw with her cub in Witless Bay
Today we got up and went out for a little trip to a park, where we walked through some woods and down to the coast. There were ruins at the bottom of an old, old town that apparently got washed away in some great storm. There were foundations left for an awful lot of buildings, and they tended to be very small (think around 10′ x 8′ for an entire house). Generally all that was left was basically a rectangular frame of stone, but in some cases there would be a little bit of a chimney left over.
A puffin in flight
After that, we went out on a boat to see the whales and puffins on Witless Bay. They took us out into the bay towards the puffin sanctuary island, and as we made our way towards it we could see flocks of puffins flying in towards it on their way back from the fishing grounds. Apparently they fly miles every day just to go fishing, and then they all come back to the islands where they nest. I took the 400mm f/5.6 out on the boat, so I had plenty of reach on them, and managed to get some closeups of the puffins in flight (and I assure you, tracking a fast-moving bird with a 400mm lens on a crop body while standing on a rocking boat is no walk in the park, especially when you’re trying to maintain focus on them).
Puffin portrait
Along the way to the island, we came across a mother whale and her cub. First we saw the mother’s spray, and then her and the baby both popped up. They dove a couple of times for food, each time staying down for around ten minutes before coming back up again. The captain managed to get the boat pretty close to them, and then they both came up to check us out a little, getting awfully close. When they went down for the last time, I was finally able to get the tail close-up that you see at the top of the page. Unfortunately, they managed to get just close enough that the 400 was actually a little too long, and I had to go with a pretty extremely close view of the tale. Nonetheless, I like it. It’s nice to be able to see the detail in the barnacles on her tail.
Puffins playing king of the ledge
Once we pulled up alongside their island, the puffins were just everywhere. They had their nests there, all awfully close together, and we got to see them jostling about with each other, and all their other interactions. Apparently the brighter outer parts of their bills are only for courting, and they actually shed them after mating season. Then they head off to travel for something like six months, and then come back to the same place every year to meet up with the same mate as always.
A proud looking puffin
After seeing the puffins and whatnot, they took us back, and I got to look through the gift shop, which proved interesting. Apparently Newfoundland was once a pseudo-country on its own, and they had some old Newfoundland coins for sale. And, of course, there were all manner of puffin memorabilia to be had, ranging from stuffed puffins to puffin salt shakers to puffin door stops. After all was said and done, we came back to the room, had another dinner of lentil and rice tacos (this time microwaved, but still good), and I got to the business of processing photographs and making a blog entry.