The Boy Who Cried "Whale"

My friend the Coordinatrix loves sea life and wild animals, so we lured her to Nova Scotia with promises of whale watching and beaver sightings. Sadly, we couldn't entice the beavers who live behind the cottage out of their lodge despite our best efforts, but we came through on the whale watching.

Lunenburg is a World Heritage site on the south shore of Nova Scotia. It's the home of the famous Bluenose schooner and the ships for several movies, including Master and Commander, were built in Lunenburg. The town has preserved many of its older buildings.

Like this lovely church.

And this school.

Steve, the Coordinatrix, and I took a whale watching expedition from the Lunenburg port. The Coordinatrix is a very satisfying person with whom to whale watch, because her excitement level is almost as high as the excitement level of the little boys standing next to us on the boat. Except that when the Coordinatrix yells out, “There it is! There it is!” she really is seeing a whale, whereas the little boys on the boat thought most of the waves in the ocean were whales. They also claimed to see an eel, China, and a sea monster.

The Coordinatrix aboard our sailing vessel.

Much to my sorrow, whales do not float on the ocean surface like they do in my childhood drawings.

If you squint, you can see the dorsal fin of a minke whale out there in the ocean.

On our way to Lunenburg, we stopped in Peggy's Cove.

Peggy is the woman on the left-hand side of this carving. She looks remarkably similar to the sturdy women depicted on social realism-type propaganda monuments in Russia.

The Peggy's Cove lighthouse

is a dangerous place.

Tomorrow: Halifax