Mon., Aug. 17, 2009 All Day on Grand Manan Island
The whale watch tours were all booked for Monday so we booked a midday tour for Tuesday. Today we spend time exploring the island. We drove to the South end lighthouse. Lots of fog. Took some pictures of the foggy conditions, eerie. The lighthouse fog horn blasted every 15 seconds…pretty loud when you’re right beside it.
Trundling back up the coast, we stopped for a picnic lunch on a cliff overlooking a wide expanse of beach. Lots of folks enjoying the beach, though the water here is very cold (says Rita).
We drove to the North end of island and to the Hole In The Wall Park. This is the camping area that we’d been told about earlier on our trip. There’s lots of hiking trails along the cliffs offering great views. We checked in and met the owner, Basil, who escorted us to our site. He was quite a character. He rode up on a 4 wheeler. He had oxygen tubing attached to his nose, the tubing was attached to a tank. Later he told us he uses 10 tanks of oxygen per week…it’s delivered each Monday by ferry.
He asked if we’d recognized the woman who’d just left his office, we told him, no. He said she’s famous. She’s the widow of Dr. Benjamin Spock, the noted author of the “Baby and Child Care” book. He said that she still handles all of Dr. Spock’s business interests. While on our hike later, we saw her again. I started talking to her, mainly about the beauty of the area. She liked our accents. We talked awhile about Dr. Spock’s book and other things. She told us she was camping on a bench (a cliff ledge) nearby in a tent. She appeared to be an amazing woman and we were honored to be able to meet and chat with her. Basil had told us earlier that she wants to go to India and write an Indian culture version of Baby and Child Care.
We’re thinking this was our best camping site, ever. We were about ten feet from the cliff edge. What a view!
Down below us, at water’s edge was a sardine weir, a fenced enclosure for trapping sardines. These enclosures served as a buffet for harbor seals. From our campsite we saw three seals around the weir.
We hiked around the north end of the island. Two viewing platforms were located along the trail. Along with more harbor seals we spotted a finback whale!
The trail continued along the cliff in a fairly difficult area for walking. The sun was beginning to set, and we did not know exactly how far we were from the hole in the wall rock formation. There was a fork in the trail and a sign posted that read ‘Park Entrance’ with an arrow. We took that trail. It was the first exit from the trail that we’d seen. This new, exit trail was almost straight up but I was happy to see it. We later found out that if we’d continued about another two minutes we would have seen the unique rock formation that extends into the water.
Tues. Aug. 18, 2009 - Grand Manan Island to Calais, Maine
We left our most excellent campsite, rolled down the hill, and turned onto Lighthouse Road for another closeup look at one of these beacons on a hill. This particular light, named the Swallowtail Light, had kept us awake a lot the night before with it’s fog horn blasting every 15 seconds (I counted). Apparently the fog had rolled in about the time we were ready for bed. Most all of the area lighthouses have been on automatic for several years, making it no longer necessary to have manned lighthouses.
After our hike to the lighthouse we continued on down hill to the marina, where our sailing boat was ready for a day of whale watching. It was excellent! We went southerly for about 20 miles before we started to see whales. Onboard was a marine biologist who identified the whale types. We saw that the whales like to travel and play in groups, or pods. Many times we saw four and five running together.
The camera was busy. At the end of the day, when Rita asked Laurie, the biologist lady, if she had a number that were spotted, she said we’d seen about 30 finback whales, around 10 right whales, and about 7 humpback whales, for nearly 50 in all. It was a good day.
We docked, and had almost an hour until time for our return ferry to the mainland. Again, we ate while on the ferry.
We departed Blacks Harbor with the goal of spending the night in Maine, USA.
We crossed the border at Calais, Maine. This crossing took a little longer than when we entered Canada. The customs officer was nice and polite while asking his questions, but he also searched inside our camper.
As we drove south on Hwy 1, I turned in at the very first campground I spotted.
We stayed the night at Keene’s Lake campground.
ATTACHMENTS: Whale Watching in Bay of Fundy (1&2)
Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick (3&4)
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