On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:00:49 -0500, bob and shel
wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>My family and I (2 young adult kids and two not so young adults) are
>planning a trip to Maine this July. Do those of you who are familiar
>with Maine have any experience with ferries? We would like to go on
>some sort of "boat" ride while there... possible staying where the boat
>goes to for a night if the place warrants an overnight stay. I have
>seen trips to Monhegan Island, some "whale watching" tours, and also a
>Nova Scotia tour.... but that may be a whole vacation in itself.
>
>Any suggestions? Seeing whales or other sea life not seen on Lake
>Michigan (seals/birds/etc) would be a huge plus.
In Bar Harbor, we once took a Naturalist Cruise that we liked very
much. It left early in the morning the better to see birds and other
wildlife and hugged the coast. There were lots of seals and puffins,
plus some eagles and other birds; we did see a whale in the distance,
although they don't guarantee that. There was a naturalist aboard who
explained what we were seeing and also showed us up close some whale
teeth and other interesting things.
On another occasion, I took a whale watcher trip, which was much less
satisfactory. Partly this was due to the weather, but also the whale
watchers go much further out, so it was a long trip in both directions
and a short time spent seeing a limited selection of wildlife. The
whales we saw were quite small; they looked like dolphins to me. I
much preferred the variety of the Naturalist Cruise.
Here is a web page that describes several nature cruises:
http://acadiannaturecruises.com/schedule.html
Here is a company that focusses more on whales:
http://www.barharborwhales.com/cruise_info.htm
Here is a page that lists the above cruises along with a lot of other
options, not all based in Acadia National Park:
http://www.acadiainfo.com/rechome.htm
The exact cruises we took may no longer exist, but several are
similar. I would avoid the Just Whales cruise for the reasons I
outlined above.
Another caveat with regard to whale cruises. Often they offer a rain
check for a future cruise if you don't see any whales. In fact, unless
you use the rain check the same season, it may be worthless. My
daughter once tried to use one of these rain checks only to find that
the company had "folded" and reopened under a slightly different name,
although the address and phone number were the same as the season
before.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero dot it. |