Whale Watching with Captain Mark in Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia

Rachael and I had one big regret from our time in Baja this winter, we didn’t do a whale watching tour. These massive mammals make colossal journeys along the coasts of North America and we only caught a glimpse of them from a beach near Cabo San Lucas. When we started planning our trip to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, we decided that we would book a tour and take our chances seeing these creatures on the opposite end of the continent in St. Lawrence Bay.

Enter Captain Mark. When you research whale watching on Cape Breton Island, this shop comes up over and over- fantastic reviews of a fun and educational experience with a local who respects the animals and knows the area extremely well. Sit tight as this is another review about how AMAZING our time with Captain Mark was.

Booking

Booking our trip was dead simple. Captain Mark’s website is super easy to use and processing was fast and secure. It took me less than five minutes to book our boat and are we glad that we did. The docks were littered with people who neglected to book early and were high and dry because they didn’t book early. Book early folks, Captain Mark fills up quickly.

Pre-Adventure Check In

We arrived 30-minutes early as the instructions online had told us to and the staff got us checked in, provided a receipt and had us sit tight for life jackets and departure. The life jackets were top of the line and were the smaller CO2 filled variety. This was a pleasant departure from the big clunky orange jackets that we were expecting.

Captain Mark greeted us on time and led us down to the boats. The pre-departure chat was informative and included all of the safety precautions about what to do if you go overboard or if the captain is rendered unresponsive. All required safety equipment was on board and we felt very secure in the Zodiac.

Let’s talk about the boats for a minute. When researching, I was expecting a large boat (think lobster fishing boat) with a ton of people on board and a creeping slow engine. We chose Captain Mark’s because they utilize a smaller, faster, and much more environmentally friendly watercraft, a Zodiac. The Zodiac is a combination of inflatable pontoons and a rigid frame that is one of the most common short distance watercraft in the world. Organizations that rely on speedy and concise travel in the water like the US Navy Seals and environmental protection agencies from around the world use the Zodiac for good reason, it works.

The smaller of the two Zodiacs available.

There are two Zodiac models available from Marks, the Northstar and the Tourmaster. The first is a smaller boat with outward facing seats and a smaller engine. In our case, this boat was captained by one of Captain Mark’s staff. The boat we booked was a bit bigger and had forward facing seats with 2 larger motors. The seats were as comfortable of seats as you could expect from a small ocean-vessel and the ride quality was extremely fun.

We departed the harbor on time and in style as Captain Mark pinned the throttle and the Zodiac sprang to life with the bow high in the air and the passengers all smiling ear to ear. Despite the 4-5 foot swells, the boat handled the rough water well and we never felt unsafe or like we would fall overboard.

The Tour

Once we got to open water we quickly spotted a family of pilot whales surfacing a short distance away. Every few seconds several pairs of whales would surface and spout from their blowholes. The benefit of the Zodiac over the larger vessels was obvious quickly, Captain Mark’s boats could simply get close to the animals quickly and turn off their motors in time to not disturb the animals. We drifted alongside this pod of pilot whales for around 30-minutes. Some would taper off to open water while others seemed to revel in the social interaction with humans and the attention that accompanied it.

The competing whale watching companies in the water at the same time as us were in larger boats, potentially old fishing boats. The boats seemed to rock more in the swells than the lighter Zodiac raft did and they were much slower, arriving to the site of the whales after they had long since left. We were glad that we were booked with Captain Mark.

After the first pod disappeared, we continued North and started to edge in closer to the shore before we came across a second large pod of pilot whales. These whales, much like the first pod, mostly stayed near the boat performing underwater turns and rolls before breaching close enough to the boat that we could feel the spray. I’m convinced we could have stayed with that pod all evening and they would have continued to put on a show for us.

We left the pod and turned toward the shore where the real beauty of the tour began to shine. The amount of unique local knowledge that Captain Mark shares on his tour is impressive- from old settlements that no longer exist to Buddhist monastery that offer a 3 year retreat on the cliffside of Cape Breton Island.

We were all smiles after our time with Captain Mark!

Captain Mark took his time navigating the coast and pointing out points of interest as well as an abundance of seals, eagles, and even some “wild” horses on an isolated beach. Mark seemed to be as involved in the local community as he was in his tour business and had stories to prove it. The boat ride itself was a fantastic adventure even if we hadn’t seen whales. The Zodiac is a blast to ride in and it made spotting and seeing the whales up close extremely easy. We had so much fun and we can’t wait to come back to Cape Breton just to enjoy Captain Mark’s tours.

To learn more about Captain Mark’s tours and to book your excursion check out their website: https://www.whaleandsealcruise.com.

July has been an interesting month, to say the least. We said goodbye to family in South Dakota and began our slightly mad journey to the East coast. The journey was mad only because we chose to do it in the hottest month of the year in a bus without air conditioning. July was also a lot of driving and not a lot of enjoying locations on the map, hopefully August will slow down and cool off a bit. We are still on track to visit all 49 driveable states by 2020 and we knocked several off of the list in July.

A North Dakota National Park

We are on a journey to see all 50 states together and to take our bus to 49 of them, so a side trip to North Dakota was needed. ND gets a lot of hate from the other states and it is pretty obvious why…there is not a lot there. One place worth mention and a visit if you are close is Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Unfortunately for us, our vehicle was too big to pass through the construction area on the road in the park so we only got to see a portion of Teddy’s park.

Wild Horse herd at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

The claim to fame of the park is its wild horse herd, which we were lucky enough to see in our short time there. These some 1000 horses roam free here and are truly something to behold. Like most of the plains, there are a ton of prairie dogs and bison to see roaming the banks of the Missouri River. The landscape and horses make a visit to this park the MOST interesting thing that one could do when visiting North Dakota, and I say that in the nicest way possible.

Headwaters of Big Muddy

Due to the time of year that we are crossing the country, most of the things that we would like to do in Minnesota are in the far-north and simply not an option right now. We have plans for a Boundary Waters trip someday that will allow us to explore Minnesota more in-depth. An attraction that we did get to visit in Minnesota was Itasca State Park near Bemidji. Lake Itasca is the start of the Mississippi River and at the headwaters Big Muddy is a simple 8-foot wide stream.

Itasca State Park is riddled with bike trails

The park is extremely nice and we gladly paid for camping to have access to the showers and water fill up. The bike trails that run through the park were also a super nice way to go check out the mighty Mississippi without having to move the bus.

Caves in Iowa?

Another state on our list that was relatively close to our route was Iowa. Although we would have loved to hang around for RAGBRAI (on our bucket list for sure) the only other thing that we found of interest to do in Iowa was to go caving. You read that right, we found a cave to explore in IOWA! It would be unfair to compare these caves to the caves we just explored in South Dakota as they are completely different types of caves and these are not nearly as elaborate or as well-preserved as the caves in South Dakota.
We hiked all over the small Maquoketa Caves State Parkand had mostly free rein of the some 10-12 caves in the valley. We were pleasantly surprised by the lack on any real rules or regulations in the park and it was pretty much chaos compared to the National Park managed caves that we visited in June. Would I travel across the midwest to walk around these caves in East Central Iowa? No. But I would stop in on my way to other places on the East Coast.

This was THE only cool place to hang out in Iowa

Iowa was also a really good stop to get my stitches removed from my misadventure in SD with a table saw. It cost $2500 to stitch my finger in South Dakota and only $97 to remove the stitches in Iowa.

Newest US National Park in Indiana

I too have been seeing the buzz all over social media about Indiana finally having a National Park, Indiana Dunes National Park. Previously designated a Lakeshore, the National Park Service has simply slapped a Nat’l Park sign on the entrance and has neglected to do much of anything else. We spent the day hanging out on the beach and attempting to enjoy the waves of Lake Michigan lapping on the sand. In true National Park style, there were thousands of people in the park and no accommodations had been made for extra trash or more porta-potties and parking at 8AM was a nightmare for a 22-foot long school bus.

We still had a good time as we tend to do just about anywhere, but we hope the NPS invests in Indiana before the next time we visit. The BEST part about our trip across the midwest was getting to meet up with a bunch of Rachael’s extended family, most of whom I (Zach) had never met. We were welcomed in to the air conditioning, thankfully, and we got to go out to lunch with most of the Fort Wayne cousins. It was an absolute treat and we now have a reason to come back to Northeast Indiana!

Bay City Bust

We made a mistake- We should have driven the West Coast of Michigan and explored the Upper Peninsula for a couple of weeks while a heat wave attacked the midwest, but we didn’t. Instead we wanted to explore part of Ontario so we drove through the least pretty and most boring section of Michigan, the Southeast. I had visited Bay City as a kid and remember it being a type of coastal town with pretty boats, I was twelve after all. We made the drive to Bay City to find a ghost town. Shops were closed in the middle of the day, streets were empty, and it just seemed like nothing had happened here in a long time, perhaps since I was there as a twelve year old.

We hung out by the river and got some work done but soon made plans to escape Michigan and head to Canada, at least we would have Tim Hortons to console us. And console us it did. Although Tim Hortons sold to the company that owns Burger King, we will still continue to patronize them as long as they continue to serve delicious crullers and affordable coffee.

Shortest International Visit EVER

Entering into Canada north of Detroit was a really smooth border crossing. Something that always happens in our bus, people tend to think we smoke weed, which we don’t. No huge political stance or moral objections to it, it’s just not our thing. The border agent seemed to think we looked like drug users and informed us several times that weed was legal in Michigan and in Canada, we simply needed to declare it, only we had nothing to declare. Ahh the joys of living in a school bus and having long hair!

We spent a few days in Canada lounging along the North Shore of Lake Erie in the little town of Port Stanley. This town was the perfect place to charge the batteries and sit in the cold lake while record highs smacked the Midwest and Northeast. We found public camping near a beach and road our bikes or walked all over town and worked in a nearby coffee shop when we needed to. It was a pleasant couple of days.

Niagara Falls was the other reason that we wanted to cross Ontario and we were not disappointed. Although Niagara is a haven for tourists, the falls are still beautiful, especially from the Canadian side. After exploring around the falls, we prepared for another breezy border crossing back into the states and we suddenly found ourselves in New York!

Upstate New York

Upstate New York is a really interesting place to visit. The bulk of attractions in Upstate revolve around the lakes region of the Finger Lakes, Lake Champlain, and Adirondack Park. New York is also home to the Number 1 State Park in the United States, Letchworth State Park and was the site of the Winter Olympic Games in the 80’s.

As is the case with most of the Eastern US, public land is rare, but we found several good camping spots and explored the North end of the state, one of which was next to a retired fire tower. Unfortunately, we did not have a ton of time to spend in New York and hopefully we can come back and spend a bit more time when the weather is cooler.

Vermont and New Hampshire

Despite the challenges of camping for free in VT and NH, we still managed to see some sites like the Ben and Jerry’s. Factory, the Green Mountain National Forest, White Mountain National Forest, and beautiful landscapes of dense green forest along the way. We found there were simply too many people touristing for our speed. Also, the heat was a bit much. The temperature was in the 90’s during the day and high 70’s at night and in a bus with no AC, that is simply too hot.

We will likely make a weekend trip to Vermont and New Hampshire in the fall some day, but for now we are heading North!

Month: August 2019