Port Rexton, NL–Part 2

While I loved the puffins, there is more to the Bonavista Peninsula than puffins.  There is great scenery and whales!!  I loved my whale watching boat trips that I took a couple of weeks earlier in the Witless Bay Reserve, but in Bonavista you do not need a boat to see the whales.

I suppose the main attraction at the Cape Bonavista Lighthouse is supposed to be the lighthouse, but for me it was the scenery and the whales.

In the picture below, you can barely make out the trail that leads up the left side of the picture.  In the water, you can see a whale spout in a distance.  It was hard to pay attention to the trail as I was always watching for whales.

Below I finally gave up on walking the trail and sat on a rock a while to watch.

I saw quite a few whales breeching, but they were all a distance away.

One whale diving and another can be seen by the white flukes (looks green under water) -Same 2, just a second later –

While there, I learned about the capelin.  Capelin are one of the reasons the whales love this area.  A capelin is a small fish 5 – 9 inches long that come into this area around June or July.  This year they were later than normal, but I did get to see some. 

Capelin have a strange spawning process.  They come up on the beach and almost all of the males die.  I have seen pictures of areas where the capelin are so thick you can not see the sand on the beach.  Many locals like to eat capelin so when they hear the capelin are rolling they head out to catch some.

On this day, it was extremely windy and the man in the picture above could not get the net out properly to get many fish.  But they were there.   You may need to click on the picture below to enlarge it, but there are 100’s of capelin in the shot below.

 

Most of Newfoundland is having a colder than normal July.  A couple of the times when I was whale or puffin watching this week I wore these -

Yes, gloves in the middle of July!  A couple of days it was only in the mid-40’s and with the wind blowing it felt much colder. 

To be continued in part 3.