Whale Watching?

Well first of all apologies to all those regular blog readers who were expecting an update at the weekend. I'm a day late - sorry. We got back late Sunday from our whale watching weekend and then we were out to dinner this evening and basically I haven't had the time! Of course I could've done it at work, but I had a big presentation to do today to DND so I was snowed under (and stressed!)
So what has happened this week? Well it's been a busy one! Charlie & Karen arrived last Sunday to a glorious couple of days of sunshine. I don't think they were expecting it to be quite so warm! However, a pleasant surprise. They have had a busy week doing the trips to Lunenburg, Mahone Bay, Peggy's Cove and so on. On Wednesday evening we drove down to Hubbards to meet them and went to the Shore Inn. The history of this is quite interesting....In 1813 there was a battle between the US Frigate 'Chesapeake' and the British 'Shannon'. Needless to say the British won and the defeated US ship was taken to Halifax where a lot of the fixtures and fittings were sold at auction. The Harnish family aquired the large copper cook-pot. It was put to use as a feed trough for the family dairy farm in Hubbards.

In the summer of 1936 The National Gyro Club contacted Guy Harnish about hosting a "lobster supper" on Hubbards Beach. The old pot was cleaned and polished and cooked its first meal in over 100 years.

The lobster supper was a great success, and soon other groups began to seek the services of the Harnish family. Weather was always an issue, so in 1946 Roy Harnish (Guy's son) built the Shore Club so that groups could be accommodated even on rainy days. The old cook-pot was decommissioned in 1957 after it was partially destroyed in a barn fire, where it was stored for the winter. However, the Lobster Supper tradition continued and this is where we found ourselves on Wednesday evening! I have to say it was an excellent evening and everyone enjoyed the all-you-can-eat mussels and salad for starters. The Lobster were excellent. The weather was also superb and Hubbards on a perfect evening like this is unbeatable. The bay was like a millpond.

So the toursits continued doing what tourists do (I was at work all week, so couldn't join them) and then on Friday we left mid-afternoon for a drive up to Smith's Cove for a weekend of discovery and Whale Watching. We stayed at Hedley House (Inn by the sea) on the Friday and Saturday night. We woke up Saturday morning to heavy rain and indeed this continued for our entire drive up Digby Neck to Brier Island where our boat trip was due to depart. Fortunately the rain stopped just before we embarked (of course it would as we had just bought Matthew and Emma new waterproof coats) and we set off on time. Now we were quite excited as this team had spotted a Blue Whale two days before, the first time one had been seen in the Bay of Fundy. Sadly it was not to be and after sailing around for nearly 5 hours, not a single whale was spied. Of course we were disappointed - especially for Charlie & Karen. We all got free tickets to return and try again (they guarantee a sighting or you get a free trip), but that is not much use to them as they fly back to the UK on Tuesday! However, it was still a fun day and at least the rain stopped! The following day started off with rain again, but after we went to the First Nation Reserve at Bear River and looked at the exhibits and then drove down to Annapolis Royal it had stopped. We had a lovely few hours walking around Annapolis Royal including the Historic Gardens. There are some lovely historic buildings there and a few photos were taken. I've included a couple of photos here, but what I'll do is provide a link to a whole raft of photos that have been taken by us and Charlie during their visit. It might take a day or two to upload them all and caption them, so please be patient. I'll let you know when they are done. In the meantime we have a photo of Charlie's 'Large' Lobster supper and me on the boat with Camera in hand wistfully gazing out in search of whales. The caption may well read 'Where are all the bloody whales?'
Our visitors depart tomorrow and so tonight we took them to Montana's, a great place for Ribs etc (which happens to be Matthew and Emma's favourite). A great time was had by all and all that remains to be done is wave them farewell from the airport. Their visit has gone really quick.....