Today was our last day in Bar Harbor. From here on out, we start heading home, though more or less slowly as we drive down the coast of Maine. Tomorrow, we plan to see Portland, ME, and some of the beaches to the south of Portland near York, ME.

Today, we finally got ourselves aboard a boat to go and look for whales. It was a bright and sunshiny day with no clouds and a gentle wind. We had high hopes.

This picture is o the harbor as we started on the tour taking us out into the ocean.

Before getting far from the island we rode passed Acadia National Park which we drove and walked all over yesterday.

There were many fishing boats we passed. Most we lobster fishing boats that darted between the thousands of buoys which marked the spots cages had been submerged deep beneath the ocean's surface to the bottom of the deep blue. As we learned, these buoys adn the lines that are attached to them are a great danger to passing whales who get entangled in the lines. We still had high hopes of seeing whales at this point.

The first stop of the boat ride was here (I forgot the name however). It is a research station for the College of the Atlantic which is based not far from Bar Harbor's town. They, the students, researchers and interns from the college, monitor the marine life from this tiny rock island and collect data. On this little rock, puffins and other seabirds nest–and that is what we were there to see.

The puffins are hard to see in this picture, but they are there although a bit blurry. They sit atop the cliff edge, the white breasted birds are the puffins. We had seen these birds before in Alaska but they seemed more colorful here in Maine than in the more northern Alaska. The puffins had more white and orange plumage.

If this picture is blown up (by clicking on it) the flying black birds are puffins which flew around the boat and over the waters we rocked on.

Acadia National Park way off in the distance.

We were watching for whales standing out on the side decks of the boat. We had jackets on, but we were not cold. The wind was cool but it was not sharp nor biting so we could hang out on the decks and be comfortable. We spent quite a bit of time outside the cabin's warmer confines.

Although we looked for whales, and we looked for nearly a full four hours, we did not see any. Not a trace of the huge mammal. So, on the way back in and while still trying to spot a whale, the boat's captain took the tour to a few smaller islands, more like rocks through, that had lighthouses on them as well as different species of marine animal life. This island was full of seals. Hundreds of them. And when they got spooked by the loudspeakers of the boat from which a narration sounded about what we were seeing, the animals rushed into the water, sliding over the rocks and into the blue water. The picture above was taken at the moment they began to head for the ocean.

Once everything calmed down, a few seals remained on the rock while our boat turned toward the harbor, back home. 

Although we did not get to see the whale which was the point of taking the tour, we had fun, laughed and got some good pictures and memories to share and treasure.

Onward we go!! Although onward may be back home :)

じゃあね！