Captain Hook & Baby

I took photo this during our trip to the Saguenay region this past summer. This is a Fin Whale that local observers gave the name "Captain Hook" due to the shape of his dorsal fin.

After "she" had a baby, they decided to keep the name regardless.

The whales come here to the convergence of the St Lawrence River and the Saguenay fjord to feed during winter. The food supply for them here is plentiful due to a combination of the subsurface geography and the tide meeting the convergence of the rivers.

In the two times that I’ve been to Tadoussac to see the whales, this is the extent of what I have seen having only seen Minke, Fin, and Beluga whales. They come to the surface to breath and then dive with only the Belugas occasionally lifting their tails out of the water. We have not seen the occasional Humpback or Blue whales in the area. Those two types of whales tend to lift their tails out of the water. There is also very little breaching of whales since it is more of a mating activity likely to be seen during the winter months in the warmer waters like the Caribbean and near Hawaii. So many like myself tend to be a bit disappointed on their first whale watching tours here since they think those activities might happen. Since this was my second tour, I was much more open to appreciate the simple breath and dive that normally occurs. Plus we were very fortunate to have incredibly still water.

~ by Frank on October 11, 2009.