Ships to shore

The weather this weekend was forecasted to be the warmest and sunniest in a while, so Davis and I decided to get out of the house and visit Steveston village, a pretty little fishing community south of Vancouver. As we approached, we noticed traffic getting a little heavy - "I guess everyone wants to get outdoors today," I remarked. "Don't worry though, I've never seen the parking lot full."

Well, it was - and so was every side street in a four-block radius. "Is there something going on today?" Davis asked, somewhat rhetorically.

Yes, as it turned out. We finally found a parking spot and started walking toward the village along the dikes when we spotted signs for the Ships to Shore festival - a tall ships celebration featuring four schooners, a Viking longboat, music and food and dancing. This used to be an annual event in the city, until it was suspended to make way for preparations leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics. This is the first year it's run since 2002.

Passes were on sale to tour the boats and take a 3-hour sail around the area, but we opted to just look at the boats from the docks. Another bit of luck was that although most ships required prepaid tickets just to get on board and look around, the Adventuress, a 133-foot schooner out of Seattle, was letting people walk around the ship for free. We took a look at all the intricate rigging, posed at the helm, chatted with the sailors, and toured the lower decks.









We also got introduced to a really neat band, the Rakish Angles. They're a 4-piece string band with a bass, violin, guitar, and mandolin. They describe their music as "Newgrass, Latin, Gypsy-Jazz and Oldtime." The music was really interesting, so if you like fiddle music or anything similar to that, definitely check them out!


After checking out the ships, we headed over to the village proper, where vendors and artisans had set up tents for the every-other-weekendly farmer's market. We tried some ridiculously delicious flavoured ganache by La Chocolaterie:


Davis's mission of the day was to visit Bell's Bake Shop - which he had read about in the paper - and get himself a Stanley Cupcake. Sadly, they were sold out. :(


But we shared a yummy coconut cupcake instead.


Steveston Village is one of my favourite places to visit, even when (or especially when) there's no festival going on. I love seeing the fishing fleet, eating fish & chips on the dock, walking down to the beach and watching dogs play in the surf. The Canada Day salmon festival in Steveston is always a lot of fun - we're more than likely going to be heading there on July 1 and I definitely recommend you do too!

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. :)