07/20/13 - Cape Breton Highlands NP

It took a long time to get our breakfast served at the B&B's associated restaurant.  Immediately after breakfast, we went to Captain Mark's Whale Watching office to book the whale watching tour. With early booking, it costs less than $30 per person for this 2 - 2 1/2 hours of whale watching tour.  They have 3 tours scheduled for each day.  However, due to weather condition, they canceled their 10AM and Noon tours on that day. We put our names down for the 4PM tour and went to do some more hiking.  We hiked MacIntoch Brook, Lone Shieling, Bog, and Benjie’s Lake trails.  We also hiked Fishing Cove trail a little bit. There was no one on the trail except us, therefore we turned around pretty quickly without finishing the whole trail.

We rushed back to Pleasant Bay around 3PM to check on the availability of 4PM whale watching tour.  Luckily, the wave died down and they decided to have the 4PM tour.  On the boat, they explained different types of whales in the Pleasant Bay and the most whales spotted in the bay are Pilot Whales.   At the first 2 hours, we were just boating around trying to spot the whale.  Finally, one of the zodiac spotted a school of pilot whales.  We followed the zodiac and saw lots of pilot whales in the last 30 minutes.  At the same time, the Dalhousie University research students were providing more details of these whales, and they were teaching us how to spot them and to watch their playful actions.  It was the first time we ever on a whale watching tour and the results are more than satisfactory.