A nice meal

After a surprisingly hot walk from Ottawa to Gatineau across the Alexandra Bridge, it was a pleasant to find that the beeline for the nearest bit of shade was the Café du Musée, part of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Lunch consisted of cold white wine, vichyssoise, baked salmon (with a kind of tasty foamy sauce, dauphinoise potatoes, summer veg) and a pretty good view of the Ottawa River and Parliament Hill.

Whale Watching in Tadoussac

In a series of four pictures - after a rather bumpy Zodiac ride out to sea where we glimpsed some whales (but too wet/bumpy to even contemplate taking camera out), we stopped by the Sanguenay Fjord to enjoy the warmer air and still waters. After about ten minutes, we got a glimpse of this pair of mother and calf feeding.

1 - The first sign of the location of a whale is usually a fin or a more likely a whoosh of air from its blowhole.

2 - As the whale surfaces to get a better angle on muching down on some food, it exposes a bit of ventral fin to help expand its jaws.

3 - Just as its turning over, we notice a little fin (the calf) coming up alongside.

4 - Loads of different species of whale come up to Tadoussac along the St. Lawrence River to feed on krill, capelin and plankton every summer. Quite spectacular to see some of the world's largest mammal a few arms lengths away.