Honeymoon Day 10

Fisgard Lighthouse - Looks like a painting!

Last day. Boo! We woke up late, almost noon, got ready and headed to lunch at John's Place. I had a lamb souvlaki wrap, Erin had a falafel wrap. Their bread was amazing too. After that we headed back to our room, and got the camera stuff ready then called for our car and headed to Fort Rodd Hill/Fisgard Lighthouse. We spent a good bit of time wandering around there, visiting the lighthouse and the batteries. 

Honeymoon Day 8

One of many lookouts on the Lighthouse Loop

Today we got up, had breakfast in the resort's restaurant

Honeymoon Day 6

This gray wolf is just the beginning

This is another picture heavy post. It may have been our busiest day.

We started out hoping for breakfast to come, alas it never showed. We gave up eventually and just had Clif bars. After we finished breakfast we got ready and headed out for our whale tour at the Tofino Whale Centre. We got there a bit early, so wandered around for a few minutes then headed back.

Saw this in the parking lot, no idea what it is

We found the Sugar Shack

We suited up (there were 11 of us total) in the coveralls they provided and walked to the boat then headed out.

Is that an astronaut? With a duckface?

Photo by Erin

The first thing we saw was a deer, followed shortly by a wolf.

Black-tailed Deer

It spotted us, but proceeded to ignore the boat

The boat followed the wolf for quite a while, trying to get everyone an opportunity for a clear sight of it.

Spotted

The picture at the beginning of the post was taken after the wolf had wandered off from the above perch. The boat was able to get much closer to him after he moved to another rock.

Tufted Puffin

The tufted puffin isn't a very good shot. There's a lot of room to crop, but it's very blurry zoomed in. Taking pictures from a boat on even slightly choppy waters is challenging, to say the least. Especially at 400mm focal length. This was one of a pair, and they flew off before I could really get steady (or lucky). We spotted a whale in the same area as the puffin, but I didn't get any pictures then. I wasn't ready. Luckily the whales were much more active in later locations.

Steller Sea Lions

Before I even got a picture of a whale, the tour was a pretty darn successful wildlife tour. But it got better. The tour guide/skipper, Howie, found a spot with at least a couple of whales surfacing frequently and we settled in there for a while, watching the whales surface, blow and go back down. Occasionally we'd see a dive too. After watching there for a while, it was finally time to head back.

Not the first, but maybe the best

This whale seemed like it was waving

The best blow shot I got

Another shot of a deep dive

But on the way he spotted a sea otter, so we stopped to take a look before finally heading back for good.

Looks like he's praying

Overall a great tour, with some really good pictures taken. We saw lots of wildlife, though didn't get pictures of everything. (bald eagle, seal, sea gulls, black oystercatchers, brandt's cormorants, starfish). The boat was very quiet, and the weather was good to us. I don't think either of us imagined a better day out there than we had.

It was surprisingly difficult to take pictures from the boat. I guess I should have expected it. A boat, sitting in the water with the choppy current, or even worse the boat moving through the water with the choppy current. I was also surprised to have some mild stomach churning due to the motion, but luckily no vomiting.

After we got back, got our suits returned and stuff, we headed to lunch at Gary's Chinese Food. (We had spring rolls for an appetizer, I had beef szcechuan, Erin had fried tofu, veggies and noodles). Then we headed back to the room for a bit to relax and plan/map out our next move. On our way back in we grabbed dinner (frozen Indian food, chicken curry for me palak paneer for Erin with an ice cream sandwich) from the front desk. After relaxing for a bit, we headed down the sunset trail on Pacific Sands property to get to Pettinger Point, which had a nice ocean view and a lot of rock outcroppings to climb on and get different viewpoints, or just to watch the waves crash into. We saw what we think was a golden eagle getting chased away by three crows. I also got some pictures of a black oystercatcher, which I had seen a few of on the whale tour but could never get a picture of them.

Pretty flower

Black Oystercatcher

Crashed

We walked back from Pettinger Point then headed out to Schooner Cove in the Pacific Rim National Park. Before we even started down the trail, there was a large spotted banana slug on the path. We then walked the short trail (about 1.2km) to the beach. It was a boardwalk with plenty of stairs going up and down as it went through the forest. Once we made it to the beach, we were rewarded with a misty view of the coastline. It wasn't long before it started to sprinkle on us though, so we hurried back to the trail. We made it back to the car just in time for it start raining more steadily. More good timing on our part.

Banana Slug

Schooner Cove's view

I like this one cause I look taller (Photo by Erin)

Pensive (Photo by Erin)

And finally some goofy wide angle distortion shots.

Photo by Erin

From there we headed back to the resort, did some more laundry, had our frozen dinners (super tasty) and relaxed for a while by the fireplace before heading to bed.

Tim Horton's count - 10

Honeymoon Day 5

Very Tall Trees

Finally got to see a bit of sunrise. It was (kind of) over the mountains in the harbor. I just happened to wake up in time to see the end of it. I woke Erin up so she could see it then we went back to sleep. After a couple hours we got up and got our stuff together and checked out of the hotel. We headed to lunch at New York Style Pizza but it wasn't open yet, so we wandered around for a bit then headed back for lunch. Erin had cheese and I had their Italy pizza. After that we hit the road, heading toward Tofino. We stopped at Coombs Country Market to check out their goats on the roof and wandered around the market for a while then got some ice cream (Nanaimo Bar for Erin, Spumante for me).

"Escape!"

We saw this bunny on the way out.

Next stop was Cathedral Grove to view some huge and very old Douglas fir and red cedar trees. I apparently had a lot of trouble with the photos here, some are blurry, all are washed out. I think I should have brought a tripod and maybe exposure bracketed and tried to HDR them. Or maybe I'm missing an easier solution, I dunno. Anyway after walking around there for a while we headed out to continue our journey to Tofino.

Erin admiring the Douglas fir trees

About the tree

Erin and the largest tree in the park

Erin and a red cedar

Erin and a fallen red cedar

We stopped in Port Alberni for a quick Wal Mart run as well as some gas. We needed another suitcase to fit some of our shopping booty in! Also got some more drinks and other miscellaneous supplies. Port Alberni was our final stop before Tofino. Many twisting, turning, up and down the mountain kilometers later we finally arrived in Tofino. Some of the sights that I could catch a glimpse of (I was driving) through the mountains were simply spectacular. There were a few stopping off points, but I never seemed to be able to decide to stop in time for any of them. We decided to try to catch them on the return journey. After we arrived in Tofino we checked into our hotel, we had a very nice ocean view suite at the Pacific Sands Beach Resort. We settled in for a bit, ordered breakfast to be delivered to our door the next morning then headed out for dinner at Sobo. The food there was excellent (I had Halibut and Shrimp with potato gnocchi, asparagus and a carrot orange emulsion as the sauce, Erin had soup and corn fritters), the service left a little something to be desired. It took around 10 minutes after we were sat for our server to stop by the table. After that, everything was ok but it's really annoying to have to wait like that. After dinner we headed back to our room, changed clothes and walked the beach for a while. Then we headed back in, hit the showers and relaxed for a bit before calling it a night.

Tim Horton's count - 10

Honeymoon Day 4

Paddlin' Hard (Photo by David)

This one's picture heavy.

Day 4 started with a quick breakfast, then we got dressed to go kayaking in Ladysmith. We did a 2 hour wildlife tour with Sealegs Kayaking. It was our first time kayaking (we went out in a 2 person sea kayak). Our tour guide David was great, quite knowledgeable about the local wildlife and always on the lookout for creatures to show us. We saw several varieties of starfish,

Sunflower Starfish

Leather Starfish

Ocher Starfish

several herons, a few bald eagles (we heard a lot more), some seals and I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting. The 2 hour trip was just about right, we were quite exhausted by the end.

We had great views

Shouldn't she be paddling?

After that we headed back to the hotel for our traditional post activity relaxation. We woke up from our nap and headed to dinner. We had planned on dinner at Asteras, a Mediterranean place, but they were super busy and we were hungry so we headed back to the wharf area and decided to try The Lighthouse Bistro. It turned out to be an excellent choice, their Bruschetta was amazing. Erin had a tasty veggie burger and I had fish and chips. The fry cook there was great at their job, the food was well cooked, crunchy and not at all greasy. Perfection.

Erin at dinner

Me at dinner (Photo by Erin)

We found a different gelato shop after dinner (Nanaimo Bar for Erin, Banana for me) then headed back to the pier to see if we could spot another eagle.

The crowd was even larger tonight

On the way down, we heard people gasping at the moon, turned around and saw that it was low in the sky, looking gigantic next to a hotel. Spectacular timing.

Supermoon

Our trip down to the pier turned out to be a very good idea.

Staring Me Down

The above was taken from the end of the pier. I turned around to take a picture of a lovely building, which turned out to be condos.

The Beacon

Erin then started going "baby baby baby" trying to get my attention, I turned and found...

Majestic

This guy was looking for handouts.

Harbor (Harbour?) Seal

I also got some crab shots, as well as some pictures of some people crabbing. One guy crabbing was particularly hilarious, he had some difficulties throwing the small ones back. One was really wrapped up in his basket and he was yelling at it quite a bit. "Get out of there", "Let go ya bonehead!" etc. I think he may have been a little drunk.

"Let Go!"

Mr. Crab Finally Listened

"Run Away!"

We left the pier after a little bit and headed a bit further up the shore, and sat for a while to finish watching the last of the sunlight. Then we headed back, did a little bit of laundry and called it a night.

A few more pictures from today.

Photo by Erin

Tim Horton's count - 7