New Brunswick: St. Andrews

8/16/25 – Our campground was a 10-minute walk from the historic (ca. 1783) and boutique shopping area of St. Andrews.  Pat wasn’t interested in looking at the shops so I poked around town on my own.  The only things I bought were lobster-flavored potato chips (they were OK) and a lobster sticker for my collection (which is on the inside of a cabinet door in the RV).  Around 4pm, Pat and walked back into town together to catch our whale-watching trip.  We were happy to get the front seat of the zodiac boat, which went very fast. 

The flotation suits they gave us kept us warm when we got out to cooler water (it was amazing how the temperature dropped about 20F)

After navigating around some islands, our first sight was a reef where gray and harbor seals were resting and swimming

The boat then took us off the coast of Maine, where we saw some porpoises and several vessels (including a couple of old sailboats) with other people looking for whales.  All of us briefly got to see the fin of a minke whale (per our guide…what do I know?!).  Our guide got a call from a buddy to report a mom and calf, so we drove about 15 minutes at high speed over to that location.  It was worth it!! 

We observed a fin whale (2^nd largest) and her calf for about 20 minutes (before we had to head in).  The calf seemed curious, swimming toward and with us (~15’ away at one point). 

They were so close that one time, we got sprayed by mom’s exhale! 

We got back to St. Andrews around 8:30pm and found a place for dinner (most restaurants had stopped serving).  We walked back to the campground by streetlights and saw 4 deer on the way.

8/17/25 – Pat found a quiet road by a lake for us to do our 10-mile training run. 

We jumped into the lake afterwards to cool off

We also saw this frog at the edge of the lake

For dinner, we treated ourselves to 1.75# lobsters that were cooked, cracked, and delivered to our RV door by the campground for CA$30 each. 

8/18/25 – We had planned to drive to St. John but the New Brunswick Museum was closed, we had already motored around the Fundy Isles (Deer, Campobello, and Grand Manan Islands) on our whale-watching trip, and I assumed any trials were still closed.  Therefore, the only thing still on my list was City Market (an indoor farmers market) and I wasn’t interested enough to drive 1 hour each way.  We did some grocery shopping and relaxed in the clamshell, listening to the birds in the trees.

We saw deer again when we went into town

Goodbye Canada!!  We cross the border on 8/19!