Surf's up!

Finally - my last blog post in my Tofino/Ucluelet series! I have dragged this on, haven't I... we left over a month ago, and it's taken me this long to digest and regurgitate the trip.

Tofino is famous for its rugged coastal beauty and all the opportunities it provides for visitors to get outdoors. Arguably the most famous scenic destination is Long Beach, a 16-km stretch of sand, sea, and sky.


Although Long Beach is part of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, many of Tofino's other beaches are not. Cox Bay beach, hidden behind the aptly named Cox Bay Resort, is one of my favourites - and it's also a great place to learn to surf!

Davis and I took surfing lessons for the first time last year, and we loved it! The water temperature is usually about 12C in the spring, which is only a degree or two lower than the ocean off Los Angeles. But the air temperature is of course much cooler, and that's what necessitates the neoprene getup!


Both times we've taken surf lessons in Tofino, we've gone with Pacific Surf School. I can't say why I chose them initially, other than maybe they offered a 3-hour lesson instead of 2 and a half. In retrospect, if you're moderately out-of-shape like me, 3 hours might be a little long anyway. But we love the instructors at Pacific, plus they give you awesome stickers, so you can put them all over your stuff and pretend you're a super pro west coast surfer too. And yes, that's exactly what I did.


On our last trip, we decided to actually rent some surfboards and go out on our own. Davis is an impressively good beginner surfer - I was able to stand up the first time we went, but this year was a total flop. But, it's still a LOT of fun, and I promise you don't even notice the cold.


Neoprene. The new Spanx.


The other thing that we love love love doing in Tofino is scuba diving! Davis has wanted to dive for years, so three years ago we did a discover dive with the local dive shop, Ocean Planet. We were insta-hooked. Last year we went back to do our open water certification, and this year we intended to do our advanced open water, but student poverty prevailed and instead we just did a day trip.

I can't say enough how much I love this dive shop - the owner, Andy, is super nice and has the cutest baby I've ever seen. All his divemasters and instructors are equally as awesome - we have never had a bad time, even the time I lost my fin and had to limp back to the boat along the sea floor. I definitely recommend trying a discover dive - breathing underwater is frightening at first, but I always get so quickly distracted by the bounty of life under the waves - the delicate sea pens, opalescent nudibranchs, feathery plumose anemones, starfish of every shape and colour, crabs scuttling here and there and - if you're lucky - giant pacific octopi.

In Ucluelet, we usually try and walk the Wild Pacific Trail, a non-strenuous trail that winds along the cliffs and through the rainforest. Trees dripping with moss line the path, and suddenly open into breathtaking ocean views.


There are so many other amazing activities I want to try in Tofino - sea kayaking, fishing, revisit the hot springs, go whale watching, and one day (when I'm in better shape) hike the arduous West Coast Trail.

What would you do first on a trip to the coast?

Previous Tofino posts:
Eating
Wildlife watching
Road to Tofino

Eating in Tofino & Ucluelet

For such a small area, Tofino and Ucluelet have some seriously good eats that, as far as I'm concerned,  stack up quite well to some of the posher restaurants in Vancouver. Not that I'm a food critic or anything - as a poor student my gastronomic forays have been quite limited. But I do like eating and trying new things, and I'm always happy to eat in Tofino... although, since your dinner was probably swimming that same morning, how could you not be?

The first year we went to Ucluelet, we really didn't know the area at all. Our hosts had left some cards for various businesses in our cabin, including one for Norwoods. "Sure," we thought one night. "Let's try it."

The restaurant was pretty busy when we got there, as I recall, so we were seated at the bar in front of the kitchen. It turned out to be the best seat in the house, as we got to watch all the amazing dishes being meticulously prepared, and chat with the owner Richard and his chef Phil. The food is all ridiculously fresh - I usually order fish (albacore tuna is amazing), and it was usually swimming that morning. Most of their ingredients are locally sourced from the Island or in province, and are perfectly assembled and cooked.

On our last trip, we started with a pomegranate cosmo and a caramel apple martini:


Davis ordered an octopus appetizer in a ginger chili sauce. I felt a little odd about eating octopus, but all the seafood is certified by the Vancouver Aquarium's OceanWise program, and it was delicious - buttery soft and full of flavour.


My appetizer was thin slices of pacific salmon in a mustard dill sauce, which was also very tasty.


As an entree, Davis and I both ordered fish - what else can you get on a trip to the ocean? Davis chose the halibut:


And I got albacore tuna:


For dinner, we each had the goat cheesecake. Although the rest of their menu changes with the seasons, the goat cheesecake is thankfully something that seems to have staying power, for which I am very grateful!


Of course, Norwoods isn't cheap, and although one year we blew our budget by eating there three nights in one trip, there are other excellent, less expensive places to eat in the area. Our usual breakfast choice, Rooster's, has since sadly shut down (which is very sad because they had excellent and economical smoked salmon eggs benedict), but Ukee Dogs is always a great breakfast choice. Almost everything there, even breakfast, is served hot-dog style on a toasty, soft homemade bun. We always get the Maple Scrambler, which features breakfast sausages smothered in cheese and maple syrup. Yummy!

In Tofino, we usually stop at the Common Loaf Bakery and coffeeshop for lunch - I think their giant salmon salad sandwiches fueled my entire open water scuba diving course. It can be a little slow during busy hours and, heads up, they only take cash, but the lemon cranberry squares are worth it.

During our most recent trip, we discovered a new (to us) restaurant: Shelter. We'd seen it the previous year and it looked pricey, but we were looking for somewhere to have lunch after our surf lesson and our instructor recommended this place to us. The giant fireplace is perfect for warming up after a post-ocean dunking, accompanied by a bowl of salmon and clam chowder and coffee served in a French press. It was also at Shelter that I found a new love: The Tofino Brewing Company. I tried their most recent beer, the Hoppin' Cretin IPA. My only complaint is that they apparently sell out almost as fast as they make it, so we couldn't take any home! And, it turns out that Shelter is not as expensive as it looks - our lunch bill probably would have been under $30 if only we'd been able to stay away from the basil-infused Caesars.


Photo via Shelter.

I'm looking forward to discovering even more places to eat next time I'm in the area but jeez... I'm really hungry now.

Birds and beasts

On day two in Tofino, we woke up to a steady rain. It sounded lovely on the roof, but it didn't bode well for outdoor activities.

Even this harbour seal seemed unimpressed...


Fortunately by the afternoon the rain eased up a bit, and treated us to some lovely island skies. Davis and I decided to go for a walk on the beach and see what creatures we could see...


A ton of little shorebirds foraged in the sand, and I saw a few species I'd never seen before including dunlin -


- whimbrels -


and semi-palmated plovers.


We also saw a couple different species of sandpipers, but I don't have any good photos of them. There may be a couple hanging out with the dunlin. We were however graced by the presence of an osprey, floating up and down the beach for over an hour, looking for prey.




The sun started to set...


The tide started coming in...


So we left the osprey to his search -


...and went back to our cabin, where we were greeted by the usual chorus of sea lions.


Up next... adventures in surfing!

To the sea

We've been back from our seaside adventure for a few days now, long enough to recover from our vacation (it was not a restful, lying on the beach with margaritas trip, let me tell you) and for me to go through our photos a little. I won't bore you with an endless slideshow of getaway snaps, but here are some of the highlights of day one.

We stopped as always in Cathedral Grove, a set of trails through MacMillan Provincial Park on Vancouver Island. This place always seems a little supernatural, a little primeval, a little Lord of the Rings - full of towering trees draped with moss and ferns crawling all over the ground. And the smells like you wouldn't believe - cedar and fir and wet growing things and (maybe my imagination) but a little bit of salt from the sea.



We found a stream with a large log crossing it and stopped for a photo op. I don't know what was on the other side of the stream... maybe next time we'll find out.





We kept driving along the highway, crossing the island, when we came to a pullout next to a bend in the river with large, flat rocks and rapids running between them.





There were tons of little waterfalls leading from one level to the next, it was a great place to practice the effect of shutter speed - but that's another post.





When we got to our cabin, we were greeted (as always) by a chorus of barking sea lions from the docks and eagles soaring overhead. And, a first - by a female common merganser paddling around the harbour.



To be continued...

Depth of field

Having completed my sixth journey across Canada (we arrived in Vancouver on Friday), Davis and I left this morning for our third annual vacation to Ucluelet/Tofino on Vancouver Island. The weather today was lovely - unfortunately, I fear, the only lovely weather we might have this week... but I guess a little rain doesn't matter much when you're soaking wet from surfing and scuba diving anyway. At least, I hope I'll be scuba diving... I'm still coughing up some nasty things and my congested nose is making a reappearance from a cold I picked up on our drive out west, so we'll see what the divemaster has to say about that. Here's hoping it magically disappears before Wednesday, although dunking myself in the cold Pacific surfing for three hours tomorrow may not be the best way to have that happen.

I have tons of photos to share with you, from our road trip and from Ucluelet, but instead of posting all the highlights of the day like I did last year, I think I'll save them until after we get back to Vancouver and settled in... it's a little too manic processing and posting them each night since I am technically on vacation. But here's a little something I took today in Cathedral Grove... I think I should have tried a few more shots, but it's kind of interesting looking. :)

Trans-Canada, day five

Driving through northern Ontario at night is an interesting experience. The towns are quite small and far apart, with dense boreal-deciduous type forest in between. At night, there is danger from moose and deer which can total your car and kill you if you run into them on the highway. Add to that limited cell reception and if you run out of gas or your car breaks down, you're pretty much all alone until a car or truck drives by possibly hours later.

Because of this, caravans tend to form along the highway, often consisting of one or two freight rig trucks and a small assemblage of cars. It reminded me of the little fishes who swim along with sharks to be protected from bigger fishes, with no one knowing who the others are or where their final destinations are, only that there is safety in numbers.

Trans-Canada, day four

Trans-Canada - day three

Trans-Canada, day two

Trans-Canada, day one

Tofino and Ucluelet - some final thoughts...

Tofino and Ucluelet - Day 3

Sea lion hauled out on the dock behind our cabin










Pigeon guillemot?







Long Beach, Tofino, BC