PUFFINS, WHALES, WAVES AND WOW!

Puffins!  Cute name, beautifully cute little birds!

Another gorgeous and glorious day in St. John's, Newfoundland.  What a land of wonders!

Everywhere you turn there is something to awe you, amaze you, astound you!
I hit sensory overload and the thrills just keep coming with each new view!

The natives tell us that this is the warmest it's been in a long time.  The temp hit 83 degrees.  That's toasty warm anywhere, but in a land that has minus temperatures and hurricane winds at times, where the sea freezes over, icebergs as regular visitors, well, 83 is downright scalding.

We went out on O'Brien's Puffin and Whales tour boat out of Bullis Bay.  There are two such endeavors, the other is called Gatherall's.  Both do a good job I'm sure.
We loaded, went up to the top deck, and once we passed the breakwater, we saw Minke whales!

Whale watching is an exercise in patience!  The whales are here to feed on the small bait fish.  The two primary whales in the area are the Minke and the Humpback.  We saw lots of the Humpback feeding and playing yesterday at the Freeland lighthouse and today we got a whole lot closer to the Minkes!  

We sailed out of the harbor and toward the Puffin Island.  There are four islands that are bird sanctuaries and supposedly over a million birds are there.  The cutest and prettiest is, of course, the little Puffin!  An amazing wonder of nature in their cuteness and uniqueness.  

My poor little camera couldn't get a really good close-up, but you can see them if you look carefully.

It was most thrilling to see so many birds and so much of nature at work here on this bird island.  We saw the brutal nature of "bird eat bird" as one type of seagull preyed on another.  We saw thousands of birds doing what is natural for them.  I will definitely have to read more about these wonderful birds.

After we returned, Larissa took us to Chafe's Landing, a local legend and hangout for some legendary seafood.  Fresh cod "chips" straight from the boat!  The food was wonderful.  Adriana had the lobster roll and Marina had the moose burger.  The food was delicious with the only drawback being that it was so hot in the upstairs room which, of course, doesn't have air conditioning.  We spoiled Floridians are truly spoiled rotten!  

Then we went to the lookout point over Petty Harbor.

Another wonderful, memorable day with Larissa, Marina, and of course, MISS ADRIANA!

Looking forward to more great explosion of the senses!