Chris's Birthday in Tofino

On the weekend of the 29th, Mike and I went to Tofino with Chris and Rain to celebrate Chris's birthday. Thanks for the invite guys! We had an awesome time.

We left early Friday morning and took the ferry .
The dogs stayed down below in the car, while we enjoyed breakfast upstairs.


Once off the ferry, we drove a ways before getting to Tofino. We came to a place which had some very old growth and a rest stop and Chris and Rain got out with Unos to explore.

Mike and I stayed in the car with Tala because it was raining pretty hard and we are pansies ;)

Here is Chris in front of a massive cedar tree.

We also saw quite a few bear on the way. Here is a black bear grazing. I think this is the closest I've ever been to an uncaged bear.

The dogs did not like the bear one little bit, they were barking and wanted to get out of the car.

That would have been one way to solve my doggy resource consumption problem ;)





I was quite impressed with the house that Rain had rented. It was only a year old and was gorgeous inside.

The front door which had a digital combination lock, opened onto the living room complete with cable tv, dvd player and surround sound.

There was also a washroom off the living room.




There were 3 levels with 2 bedrooms and a full bath with jacuzzi tub on the second level. Both rooms on this level had a balcony that looked onto the back yard and the hot tub.

On the third level there was the 3rd room which was in the loft.

Here is a shot of Mike in the loft from below.

The home was only a year old with winding staircases, etched glass railings and skylights.



Here is the full-kitchen, with the laundry room to the side.

It had every appliance you could think of and was fully furnished. There was even coffee beans, a grinder and sugar.


Here, Rain, myself and the puppies are relaxing on the couch and the dining room and the exit to the deck and hot tub are in the background.

The dogs really enjoyed this cabin which was basically in the woods and they loved running around in the back yard.

Here are Mike, Chris and Rain in the hot tub. We had a lot of fun in the hot tub that first night.

I think we were in there for almost 4 hours. It was very relaxing.

Some of us had a little too much champagne, but I'm not going to name any names ;)





The next day we embarked on the main attraction, Whale Watching. First we started off with a hearty breakfast.

I was a little worse for wear and the others were not convinced that I should go bouncing around on an open Zodiac for 2 hours.

However, one of the main reasons I came was for the whale watching and I decided to suck it up and go no matter what.

Here are Mike and I in the gear.

They provided these water-proof, warm suits, toques and gloves and I'm glad that they did because I would have been a Popsicle if they didn't.

We were clowning around in our suits. We thought we looked like astronauts.


Here are Chris and Rain, gingerly stepping into the Zodiac.

As you can see it is an open boat surrounded with air-filled tubing.

We were about to get a very fast and very bumpy experience.






Here is the closest we got to the hump backed whales that we were following.

In this case, the whale came to us which is okay, but the boats have follow the whales at a distance of 100m (I think) and keep away from other boats at a distance of 100m (I think) as well.

We did not see any orchas (black and white killer whales), but we did see many humpbacks.




It turned out that it wasn't me who would get seasick.

Here is poor Mike hanging off the side of the boat.

He was fine on the roller coaster ride out to the viewing area, but the rolling of the monstrous Pacific waves got the better of him during the ride. Mike claims that such an experience would be a very effective form of torture :(



This island has a large fishing industry. One of the main exports is fresh crab.

Here is Rain enjoying a whole crab that evening at a nice restaurant we went to to celebrate Chris's birthday.

The other nice restaurant in town (lol) was being renovated, so our choices were limited, but it was excellent food.

I was reminded of why I love living in the city. The lack of competition seems to slow down the process of feeding customers considerably. I would say the best comparison of this city for you Maritimers would be St. Andrews.
The next morning we had breakfast and headed off for the fairy. We made sure we had enough time to stop at long beach before leaving.

Surfing is the other main attraction in Tofino and there were many surfers taking advantage of the beautiful day to ride the waves.

Here are Tala and Unos bringing in a stick that Chris was throwing for them. These two would have ran into the waves until they collapsed if we let them. They had a blast.


Well we had an awesome time and Tofino, you have been done!