A rather disorganized start to this one. On arrival at shore at 10:30, I showed my ticket to the ShoreEx person: “10:45, wait over there (gestures indiscriminately off to the side).” I return at 10:45 to find out the group has already left and now I’m a straggler. The ship crew makes quite clear we are not particularly appreciated: “we leave promptly at 11 and we’re still short 16,” one says over the radio as I board.
Given the coverage recently about Bar Harbor residents implementing cruise ship limits and removing representation from the cruise industry from their tourism council, that comment struck me as indicative of the attitude of locals toward cruise passengers…happy to take our money, but only until it becomes inconvenient. I’ve not felt that in our other stops.
The Tour
To get to the area where the whales are is about 1.5 hours or so of sailing. According to our Cruise Director Julie (Love Boat references aside, her name is Julie), this was the best day for sightings this season, and maybe in her career. We lost count, but believe it was over 15 whales we saw breach.
At least five of the whales were familiar to the crew, by name. With the potential for storms later this week and the changing seasons it sounds like this may be one of the last good days of the year.
The weather has been tremendous, better than we could hope for!
and then