Traveling with Pam: Parkers Cove

I decided to go on a whale watching trip in Digby, NS , so I stayed at the Cove Oceanfront Campground in Parkers Cove August 31 – September 3. This is a nice RV park, but it is quite a drive to most things I wanted to do. I probably would not stay there again.

I timed my tour so that I would have time to hike Balancing Rock trail beforehand. It is a fairly easy hike except for a lot of steps!! But it leads to a beautiful basalt coast with, surprise, a balancing rock!

You have to take 2 ferries to get to Brier Island.

After checking in at the tour office, I had about 1.5 hours to spend before the boat trip. I visited a lighthouse and an interesting beach.

I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to take another whale watching trip since I have had pretty good luck with whales this summer. But I decided to go anyway. I am so glad I did. One of the workers on the trip said this was the best trip she had ever had and she had worked for the company several years.

I have seen pictures of very lucky whale watching boats having a whale or 2 come very close to the boat but have not experienced that with a humpback until this trip. At one time we had 4 whales very close to our boat. We saw more 30 whales and they were able to identify 17 of them. We saw just about all activities of humpback whales.

Typical diving whale tale -

Breaching in a distance -

Tail slapping, the next 3 are shots taken in a series -

More tail slapping-

I forget what the 2 below are called. They basically just hang out a while with their tail up in the air.

Getting closer to the boat –

Spy hopping --

We had been warned that if they got close they have horrible breath. I had heard that before but never smelled it, until this trip. When they got close to the boat and sprayed us it stunk!!The spray was also sticky and made the filter on my camera messy. These guys got within several feet of our boat. This was awesome. I am ready to go on another whale watching trip just by looking at these pictures again.