We left Clarenville this morning to head to our final destination of the trip, the capital of the province, St. John’s. We spent most of the day at Bulls Bay, where we heard two lectures and took a whale watch and sea bird boat trip.
Given the lectures, I don’t have many photos. I did learn a lot though. The first lecture was given by our bus driver, whose career had been in marine technology. Over his career he saw an impressive change in marine navigation, and he led us through the developments smoothly and with no notes at all! It was his first time presenting the talk, and once he gets some visual aids, it will become a really good education. Marine navigation affects all of us, and certainly was very important for the history of the world, so knowing a little more about it makes sense.
Our next speaker was a sea bird ornithologist who has worked for the federal government to survey bird population for the past thirty years. For someone who spends so much time outdoors, I feel I know very little about birds, in general, and certainly less about sea birds. For example, it was only today that I learned that the definition of a sea bird is one who spends most of its life in the ocean, only using land for breeding season. A great example of this is the very lovable puffin.
We boarded our boat and were off into the bay for ninety minutes this afternoon. It’s the end of the season, so many puffins are gone, as are the whales. Some people saw a Minke whale, but they don’t breach and are quickly gone after coming to the surface to breathe. We did see a sunfish, and I have a photo of a fin:
The sea was full of little, floating puffins though. And we were able to watch them fly from the nesting island to the water again and again. They are so clumsy looking on land; I think hunting down underwater footage of them swimming is in order for me, at some point. Underwater, I understand, they look like diving machines.
In the photo, above, you can see the soil area just full of burrow holes. There wasn’t much activity here this afternoon– either the occupants have moved on, or the parents were feeding and the fledglings were not looking out. The gulls were on the rocks below, waiting for the puffins to return. Most species of gulls do not eat puffins, but they do steal the puffins’ fish.
We drove into St. John’s and my first impression is that it’s a city where the harbor and port feeling is strong, and that it’s a hip city. We had a free night for dinner and Mark and I ate at an innovative restaurant called Rabbles. The “adventure” taste of the night was a starter of cod tongue and cod cheeks, cornmeal fried. Here is what it tasted like: the tongue, just a bit like tender fried calamari (not the tough, chewy kind). The cod cheeks are a muscle, so they tasted like very tender cod. The other starter was brown bread dinner rolls sitting in a pool of molasses. We really could have stopped eating after these, but gamely moved on to halibut and broccoli in a chili sauce, and house made gnocchi in lobster tomato sauce. Then we were done.
On the walk home, we were one block up from the harbor. It’s a big, working harbor, and the integration with the city reminds me of being in a mini version of Auckland, NZ.
Leave a Reply