Day 21, Wednesday, August, 15, 2018. Perce, QC
With a bad weather forecast for the afternoon, we get an early start to catch the first boat to the Parc National at 9 am.  The boat makes a close run by Perce Rock and then circles the Island before docking.  Unfortunately, at 9 am, the fog had not yet lifted and hindered our view of the rock.  Perce Rock is just off the coast of the Gaspe Peninsula and is one of the most recognized natural attractions in Canada.  It is 1,420 feet long and 288 feet high and is believed to have formed during the Devonian Period, that is about 380 million years ago. The fog was not much of a factor as we circled the island.  The island is home to more than 200,000 seabirds, mainly gannets. The cliffs and the sky were loaded with gannets.  I don’t know who counted the birds but their estimate seemed low.  We docked and then began our hikes.  First the Colony Hike across the center of the island of 2.6 km.  When we reach the other side of the island, we found the gannets. The noise was only exceeded by the aroma. My estimate of the number of birds is in the millions if not zillions!  A flying bird coming in for a landing could not help but to bump into others. The gannets are fairly large birds with a wingspan up to 6 feet. Many juveniles were also present. A rope holding the people from entering the bird territory was only a few feet from the birds. Amazingly, no birds crossed the rope.  We began our 4.9 km hike back around the coast of the island and caught the 1:00 boat back. The ride back also went by the Rock which allowed photos without the fog.  Before returning to the coach for lunch, we stopped again at our fish shop for another pound of lobster for dinner and a half pound of crevettes (shrimp) for lunch and to our patisserie for 2 chocolate croissants, one for lunch and one for dinner.  At 3 pm we had planned to do more hiking on Mount Sainte-Anne but the bad weather finally came and we relaxed the rest of the day in the coach and I even got some legal work done. Dinner was lobster and chocolate croissant.  What a deal!