Beluga Whales. We could see them across the fjord, breaking the surface to blow before shallow diving to feed on the abundant krill found in this part of the Saguenay.  We stopped paddling to listen in the dead calm of the morning.  We could hear the sounds of their breathing in every direction.  There were so many Belugas breaking the surface we didn’t know where to look for the best view.  And then they were all around us.  A large Beluga swam toward the side of Alan’s boat, gracefully sliding under it and rising on the other side without even rocking him.  Another broke the surface with a splash on the rear quarter of my boat (you can hear me exclaim as it happens on the video).  I didn’t see the creature, but the others said I could have reached back and touched it.  I never felt threatened or nervous as these white whales, longer than our boats, swam around, under and among us.  It was a special experience I will revisit many times in my mind.

A Note On the Video Footage: Filming the Belugas was difficult.  I was using a Sanyo Xacti waterproof handheld camera.  The camera is small and great for my purposes.  I can keep it safely in a pocket of my PFD.  But it has no viewfinder, only a LCD screen.  These are hard to view in sunlight with polarized sunglasses on.  And while it has an image stabilization system, shooting in telephoto mode from the cockpit of a moving kayak means lots of jerky images and missed shots.  The images seen here represent about twenty percent of the footage I shot (I have some wonderful shots of blue sky!). 

For more information on Beluga Whales visit Wikipedia: Beluga Whales

Photo from Wikipedia.