2004-04-02-Tofino

Justin flew in town for an interview. But before he had a chance to gather his wits, we whisked him away from the airport to loiter in Tsawwassen for a couple of hours, sit on a boat for an hour and a half, then ride in the back seat of a car for another three hours.

Vancouver Island marmot

2004-04-03

Michael did the bookings, and got us a house in Ucluelet.

Living room	Kitchen	Other side of kitchen	Bedroom
A Balsam House

We spent most of the day around the Wickaninnish area.

Driftwood on Long Beach	Michael looking cold	Michael preparing to get colder	Brrr
Looking south from Long Beach	Wickaninnish info centre	Justin, Cyn, Deb on Long Beach	Small Cyn, big log
Cyn	Pebbles on the beach	Justin	Water
Strange tree branch	Brothers Coughlinzov	Windy	Baby slugs
Big slug	Deb and Michael atop a big rock	Lichen

Along the beach just south of the Wickaninnish Centre, there were large rock formations that protruded out of the sand. Most of these were hard layered rocks (I'm no geologist, so I have no idea what the type of rock is called), and towered as high as 10m out of the sand. We noticed that in some of the cracks, a couple of metres off the ground, were pennies that had been wedged in. As a testament to the power of water, these coins were bent and folded onto the contour of the rock. It provided our imaginations with a contrast to the clear beautiful day we were having to think about the strength of the storms crashing on the coast, powerful enough to bend pennies.

Deb, Justin, Michael on a rock	Hardy plant	Pretty flowers	Some sort of coral?
Sea anemone	More	Even more	A whole pond of them
Closed anemones	Caution wolves

We stopped in town for a little look around before heading back to Ucluelet.

Pacific Terminus, Trans-Canada Highway

Tofino Air

Cloud

Deb on dock

We had some BBQ for dinner, played a bit of Tarot, then went to sleep.

Justin reading in dining room

Michael the BBQ chef (it's dark outside!)

Dinner

This cake has Deb's name on it.

2004-04-04

After breakfast, we cleared out of the house, and wandered along the trail in Ucluelet. We played out on the rocks for a while, then around the lighthouse before deciding that it was time to be Nanaimo bound.

Flowers	Rocky coast	Sculpin	Deb, Cyn, Michael against washed out sky
Water activities NOT recommended	Coast guard ship	Lighthouse	Kids

For some reason, all the doors around the house and shed near the lighthouse were clearly marked with lead based paint signs.

We got back to Nanaimo in plenty of time to ensure our passage on the next Horseshoe Bay sailing. Leaving the car in line, we ventured off in search of ice cream. Unfortunately, ice cream was not to be found any where nearby. We ended up following the beach northward for quite some distance before deciding that it was time to return, and then traversed the beach quite a bit more before the next access. It took significantly less time on the road, and we picked up some ice cream from the gas station back near Departure Bay.

Michael reading at highway stop