By Skipper Bob
Bay Bulls is the most accessible option if you’re staying in St. John’s and it has great puffin colonies. Twillingate is Newfoundland’s iceberg capital — go there if icebergs are your priority. Trinity gives you the most serious whale watching experience on the island and the option to see icebergs, and puffins in the same area. Your choice depends on what matters most to you!
People want an honest answer, and I’m going to give you one. All three locations are real. All three will put you in proximity to humpback whales. And all three offer something worth seeing. But they are not interchangeable, and which one is right for you depends on what you’re actually looking for.
Bay Bulls: The closest option to St. John’s
Bay Bulls sits about 40 kilometres south of St. John’s, which makes it the most convenient whale watching option on the island for visitors based in the capital. The operators are well-established, professional, and deservedly popular. If you have one afternoon in St. John’s and you want to get on the water, Bay Bulls is the logical starting point.
What Bay Bulls does exceptionally well
Puffins. The Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, a short boat ride from Bay Bulls, is home to the largest Atlantic puffin colony in North America — over 260,000 breeding pairs on the island. If puffins are what you came to Newfoundland to see, Bay Bulls is your answer.
The tours are also well-suited to large groups and family travellers who want a straightforward, well-organized experience close to St. John’s. The boats accommodate anywhere from 50 to 250 passengers, there’s usually music and narration on board, and the overall experience is accessible and entertaining.
Twillingate: The iceberg capital of Newfoundland
Twillingate sits on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, in the heart of Iceberg Alley — the stretch of coastline where icebergs from the glaciers of Greenland drift south on the Labrador Current. It’s a genuinely beautiful outport community, and the icebergs that pass through here in late May and June are among the most dramatic in the province. If you’re in central or northern Newfoundland and icebergs are the reason you came, Twillingate is where you want to be.
What Twillingate does exceptionally well
Icebergs. The operators in Twillingate have been running iceberg tours for decades and they know exactly where to find them. The bergs that arrive in Notre Dame Bay tend to be further north in their journey than those at Bay Bulls, which means they’re larger and more numerous — the kind of berg that blocks out the horizon and turns aquamarine in the right light. The town itself is also worth the trip. It’s a classic Newfoundland outport with good restaurants, the Long Point Lighthouse, and the kind of scenery that makes you understand why people drive five hours to get here.
Trinity: The serious whale watching destination
Trinity Bay sits in one of the most productive marine feeding grounds in the North Atlantic. The capelin that arrive here every summer draw humpback whales in numbers that keep our sighting rate consistently above 98%. In over 30 years of running tours from Trinity Harbour, I have never stopped finding the ocean safari remarkable. Not because I’m required to say that, but because Trinity Bay keeps being remarkable.
What makes Trinity different
Group size. Our tours run with a maximum of 12 passengers. You have an unobstructed view from wherever you’re sitting, and you can ask your guide a question without shouting. This is the most meaningful practical difference between Trinity and the other options.
The vessel. We use a Zodiac RHIB — a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat, the same type used in offshore rescue operations. It sits low on the water, so you’re at eye level with the ocean rather than looking down from a tall deck. It can manoeuvre quickly when a whale surfaces, and it doesn’t produce the slow rolling motion that causes seasickness on larger vessels.
The location. Trinity Bay is positioned directly in the path of the capelin run. It’s one of the most reliably productive whale feeding grounds on the island, and it has been for as long as there have been people here to notice. The 98%+ sighting rate is the result of being in the right place, not luck.
The honest answer
What I can tell you is that the guests who come to Trinity and have two or three days on the Bonavista Peninsula consistently tell me it’s the best part of their Newfoundland trip. Not because Trinity is the only good option, but because spending real time in one place on the water, on the trail, in the town produces a different quality of experience.
Ready to book? View our whale and iceberg tours.
Questions? Call Skipper Bob at (709) 464-3712 or reach the lodge at (709) 436-3011.
Have more questions before you decide? Read our full whale watching FAQ.
