Happy Birthday To Me

For my birthday trip this year I picked Canada. We're only a couple of hours from the border.

Shaker magnet.  Under the "snow" it says Canada.

We left the RV early in the afternoon and crossed the border into New Brunswick about 2 hours later. Our first stop was the visitor center where we picked up maps and information for the New Brunswick area.

Crossing the border.

Since it was already getting a little late in the day we drove another hour to our hotel. We checked into the Holiday Inn Express in St. John, New Brunswick.

My birthday is July 11 (7/11). Interesting, our room was 711!

The room was very comfortable.

The next morning we were up early to drive an hour back to St. Andrews. We had reservations with Island Quest Whale Watching Cruises.

Island Quest Whale Watchers

We arrived a little early and had time to walk around this beautiful town.

We were told the boat would hold 44 people. There was a large group that had canceled late the evening before and left us with only 6 other people on this trip.

Our boat.

We had plenty of room to move around!

 Skipper Dan and Mark

Mark on the upper deck

The day was beautiful and perfect for our trip. Smooth seas and sunny skies.

Smooth waters

As we headed out of the harbor we noticed thousands of Moon Jellyfish in the water. They were on both sides of the boat as far as the eye could see.

Moon Jellyfish

Even though this was a whale watching trip, we saw other wildlife too.

Harbor Seals

Harbor Porpoises

Bald Eagle

We passed many private islands and a couple of lighthouses.

Island Cabin

Lighthouse

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. At the upper end of the bay the tides can exceed fifty feet.

As the tides go in and out they create amazing tidal swirls that make it look like the water is boiling.

We only saw one type of whale, the Minke whale. Unlike Humpback whales, Minke Whales do not come out of the water with a big splash. We followed what we think was a single individual for  30 minutes and saw it about a dozen times.

There were other whale-watching boats in the area, so this whale was getting plenty of attention!

Minke Whale

After leaving the whale, our guide Mandy brought out a small touch tank.

We had a nice relaxing trip back to the dock. This is a busy harbor with both working lobster boats and pleasure boats.

After lunch we headed to the Fundy Discovery Aquarium.

The entry had a very nice large aquarium with Salmon and other fish from the Bay of Fundy.

There was a very nice "touch tank".

 Ten-ridged Whelk

It's a very small aquarium and it didn't take us long to see every thing.

Seahorse

There were other things to do that we did not partake in such as marine themed films, walking the beach trail, watching the seahorses being fed.

We had a long drive to our next hotel and were ready to get back on the road.

Next time: Prince Edward Island