Canada Day, Cod and Whales

2130, Saturday, July 1, 2023

We had a glorious day today. We sailed from the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club at about 0745 this morning. We were bound out Conception Bay for the fishing outport of Bay De Verde at the entrance of the bay, a run of 35 miles. We had a breeze on our port quarter and had an excellent sail, making good time. We even sighted our first Iceberg today, several miles distant of the entrance to Conception Bay - more to come!

One of the highlights of today were the humpback whales; we conservatively estimate that we must have seen in excess of 75 of them! This evening, we are sitting in the cockpit and see three groups of whales feeding just outside the breakwater. They are everywhere!

At 1530 this afternoon we sailed into Bay DeVerde and a fisherman directed us to an open berth amongst the fishing fleet. Just ahead of us a boat came in with three generations of family aboard from youngsters to grandparents. This being Canada Day, the food fishery has opened for the season, allowing each person to catch up to four cod, four days a week, for their family's consumption. Since 1992 and the collapse of the cod fishery, they are not allowed more. But, the photo below shows one very happy grandfather with one very large cod!

Ashore, Mory and I went through the small, local history museum. Then some local ladies served us tea and tea buns as we chatted about this lovely village. An excellent day, and we may still here whales blowing as we drift to sleep tonight.

See other photos below: A whale just outside the breakwater and our afternoon tea!

Bill

The two photographs above are of the top of "Bird Rock," the center of this stunning colony of Northern gannets. I took the top photo last year at about this time. The second photo is of the same rock today, in foggy weather. You will notice far fewer birds in the second photo.

Last summer, while sailing the Newfoundland coast, we saw numbers of sea birds floating, belly up, dead in the water. It was due to the outbreak of avian flu, which has reached pandemic proportions around the globe in birds. Today, I spoke to one of the naturalists at Cape St. Mary's, remarking that it looked like fewer birds, less dense nesting sites and not spread over as wide an area. They told me that this year they are seeing a 40% drop in the number of birds, down from 100,000 to 60,000, due to devastation from avian flu.

There are no quick, easy answers about why avian flu is running rampant. However, some data from the National Institute of Health suggests that climate change may be a factor, changing migration routes. Climate change also brought much warmer than normal temperatures to Newfoundland last year. In this typically cold climate, it is probably harder for the avian flu virus to survive for long outside of a live bird. But, warmer air and water may allow the virus to live longer and infect more birds in the environment..

Whatever the cause, Newfoundlanders are concerned about their seabird populations.

The final photo below is a view looking down from the top of Cape St. Mary's to see a humpback whale feeding on the same fish the gannets are feeding upon. The views are amazing.

Tomorrow we cast off our lines and head north.

Bill